Urban Diary

A Cavafy-tinted London’s winter day

First weekend of the year and we’re at Charterhouse. This is the former Carthusian monastery that has served as private lodgings, a boys’ school, and an almshouse.

By now we have become used to this routine. We take our walking party for a stroll around the area whilst others go and play football. The two groups are made up of refugees, asylum seekers, and volunteers.

On entering Charterhouse, just outside the chapel, I notice candles. They’re not burning. It’s as if the Arctic-like wind we’ve just braved when going through the Barbican estate has smothered their flame. I think of Constantine Cavafy’s poem “Candles” and at the same time of the horrors witnessed by and visited on these refugees and asylum seekers.

The days past remain behind us,

a mournful line of extinguished candles;

the ones nearest are still smoking,

cold candles, melted, and bent.

I do not want to look at them; their form saddens me,

and it saddens me to recall their first light.

I look ahead at my lit candles.

I do not want to turn back, lest I see and shudder

at how fast the dark line lengthens,

at how fast the extinguished candles multiply.

In silence, and in my head, I light a candle for them.

Cuban, Immigrant, and Londoner, on sale now.

You can buy me a coffee here.