Candle.(Poem)

 
CANDLE 
 
   When the Romans besieged a city, 
   When they ringed a city with their campfires, 
   Their tents, their spears, their coarse soldier's jokes, 
   And the very air throbbed with the threat of a sacking 
        (the words "rape and pillage" have no trace 
        of metaphor here. They mean babes held by their feet 
        and swung, brained casually against a wall 
        by these civilised legions of thugs), 
   Shaking the occupants of the city, 
   Who ponder their options in mounting panic; 
 
   While all this happened, the Romans, 
   It is said, had this further civility: 
   They would light a candle. 
 
   And for the time the candle burnt, 
   Surrender was possible, 
   With no harm done, no babies slaughtered, 
   No women forcefully, repeatedly, impregnated, 
   No youths abused and killed with multiple stabbing, 
   No old men scalped and left to bleed out 
   Through ...