How many miles to Babylon?
Three score and ten.
Can I get there by candlelight?
Aye, and back again.

How will I know where to begin
When I’m lost in a world I don’t recognise?

Shadows not signs light the way.

And if I go there, will you come too?

I don’t know; I cannot say.
But if your thoughts are straying to Babylon
And you would go that way,
Follow the sound of words
As they fall between page and ink,
Close as the beat of your heart
And as far beyond reach as the sun when it sinks.

Among the spectres of pictures
Of pictures
Of pictures
Of dreams you once had,
Across chasms and mountains and unfurling plains,
Run hard and run with them over bridges of night
Above stars tangled in lilies where the moon lies in chains.

Follow
And follow
And follow along
Until you have come to Babylon before the light of day.

If your heels are nimble and light.
You may get there by candlelight −
And I will come back again.

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Felicity Marsh is a poet and author of short stories, from flash fiction to novellas. Though primarily a writer of adult fiction, she has also published non-fiction and children’s stories, with recent titles that include “If I Had Only One Story to Read”, “The January House”, “In the Swing of the Sea”, “Caracalla”, “Mama”, and “Time Was, Time Is”. Ranging from humorous to contemplative, her work often tends towards the speculative and frequently includes fantastical and gothic elements that draw on her abiding love of myth, legend, and traditional tales to explore new and sometimes problematic themes.