As so with that I thought I'd take a final walk. The tide of public opinion had started to abate. The neighbours bless them had turned out to be all talk. I could see their frightened faces peering at me through the gate. I was looking for an end to this for some kind of closure. Time moved so rapidly I had no hope of keeping track of it. I thought of my friends who had died of exposure. And I remembered other ones who had died from the lack of it. And in my best shoes I started falling forward down the street. I stopped at a church and jostled through the crowd. And love followed just behind me panting at my feet. As the steeple tore the stomach from a lonely little cloud. Inside I sat seeking the presence of a God. I searched through the pictures in a leather-bound book. I found a woolly lamb dozing in an issue of blood. And a gilled Jesus shivering on a fisherman's hook. Babe. It seems so long. Since you've been gone away. And I. Just got to say. That it grows darker with the day. Back on the street I saw a great big smiling sun. It was a Good day and an Evil day and all was bright and new. And it seemed to me that most destruction was being done. By those who could not choose between the two. Amateurs dilettantes hacks cowboys clones. The streets groan with little Caesars Napoleons and cunts. With their building blocks and their tiny plastic phones. Counting on their fingers with crumbs down their fronts. I passed by your garden saw you with your flowers. The Magnolias Camellias and Azaleas so sweet. And I stood there invisible in the panicking crowds. You looked so beautiful in the rising heat. I smell smoke see little fires bursting on the lawns. People carry on regardless listening to their hands. Great cracks appear in the pavement the earth yawns. Bored and disgusted to do us down. Babe. It seems so long. Since you've been gone. And I. Just got to say. That it grows darker with the day. These streets are frozen now. I come and go. Full of a longing for something I do not know. My father sits slumped in the deepening snow. As I search in and out above about below. Babe. It seems so long. Since you went away. And I. Just got to Say. That it grows darker with the day