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Jan 10
HOW MANY MILES. .?

I try to
get back
to

the you
before you
died

you flicker
in the candlelight
I am trying to

not let the forgetting
happen
to you

but you begin to
fade and
falter

you tell me
to let you
...go

that it will be
easier
for me

but I would rather
own
the pain of this love

hold you all the tighter
smuggle you in a dream
across death's border

you are beyond Babylon
...the many miles to...
the childhood rhyme

I told you
"Can I get there by candle light..?"
I ask the dark

"...there and
back again..."
the emptiness echoes.

each night I fetch
your ghost
feeding it my pain

to keep you here again
only to have to
return you

when morning
brings a new day
you can never know

*

Brian was about ten or eleven when Jennifer Johnson's beautifully elegant and achingly sad novella HOW MANY MILES TO BABYLON  came out...I used to tell him the story and read bits to him. He had asked me why the book was called that so I would recite the little rhyme for him and then he would often repeat it to himself.

How many miles to Babylon?
Three score and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, and back again.
If your heels are nimble and light,
You may get there by candle-light.
Donall Dempsey
Written by
Donall Dempsey  Guildford
(Guildford)   
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