BABEL

How many miles to Babylon?


  Listen to the spirit language 
  in silence

  Is there a voice?
  No human voice.

  Words?
  They are unbidden, uncalled for:

  All the words in the world
  but that we seek
  Unwordly, unworldly, unsounded.

To get there
and back again
no need to count the miles
but kindle the flame
which flickers, falters
for a candle space
a candle time.

Listen! - they are timeless,
the smooth words flowing,

Hardening to roughness:
  corrugations
   in the runnels 
    of history.