Consider your shadow
Hark, Komos, my old friend!
How within his darkness he enfolds
Both gilt and purpur and turns
Them twain into
Gravel and shreds of cloth

And does Lord Thoth wave at thee?
From across the chasm of Death's death?
And then thrice more
Your city's sainted gravediggers?

And therefore, Komos,
Come help me and heave
A gravestone up for this brother
And sister of ours

O much beloved and sheltered alcove there
In the empty quarters where Bards once rehearsed
Where Time and Death
The diva and the prancing fool
Unite in the same earthly ashes

To thee envy never sought to steer my steps
As joys were few and far between enough as things stood
And so will never haunt these barrows
Where enemies, caught, must avert their eyes
Kneel and break off their arrows

The Clocktower calls to the ballbearer's little bell
Fae's priest clad in leaves in the doorway
And by their somber robings and lacings we can tell
That a sweet departure hallows and sanctifies this day
The path past haughty Ugrach's fell fief
Even though it's summer is
Strewn with dead leaves
Molding deadwood and casques
As the choir of mourners all line up and plead
For the passing of fae at long last

So passed to reward
From calfskin and stage
Beloved Kilian our comrade
No more to the Crossing
Sharp-witted and tongued
Will fae give of fae to the crowd
In this age

From the loved orchards parted this day
And along with fae, all our merry ways
And whom shall His muses now command?
Lost to their home
And their loves far away
Lost to the flower of this sacred land


Penned by my hand on the 14th of Phaestian, in the year 974 AF.