A Star’s Farewell in Ashen Skies

A single star, through smoldering clouds, doth gleam,
Its argent light a needle through the night.
He halts, as memories cascade in stream:
A banner’s blaze, a feast of gold and light,
A vow sworn neath this selfsame celestial flame,
To guard her heart—yet here he stands, to blame.

“O spectral orb,” he murmurs, helm unlaced,
“Dost thou recall her laughter, bright as spring?
When lilies crowned her brow and joy she chased
Through gardens where the larks took fragile wing.
Thy beams once lit her face, now dust and shade,
Thy gleam the ghost of promises unmade.”

The ruins shift; a phantom breeze replies,
And stirs the ash where fountains dared to play.
He sees her shadow dance with mournful eyes,
Her voice, a half-remembered roundelay.
“Why linger here?” the walls seem to implore,
“No throne remains, no crown, no sacred lore.”

Yet steadfast as the North Star’s constant gaze,
He kneels where crimson banners kissed the floor,
And draws a tattered sash of cobalt haze—
Her last farewell, now frayed by war’s red roar.
“The heavens claim their due,” he breathes, resigned,
“But love, once sworn, outlives the ties that bind.”

The star, now dimmed, descends in sorrow’s hue,
Its light dissolved in dawn’s encroaching gray.
The knight, his vigil ended, bids adieu,
And lays the sash where first she slipped away.
His blade, once bright with honor’s fervent glow,
Now rests beside her name, etched long ago.

No ballads chant the fall of moonlit stone,
Nor weep the bards for hearts that break alone.
The star, a silent sentinel, drifts west,
As shadows claim the knight to endless rest.
Yet in the dust, where none dare tread or kneel,
Two motes of light entwine—both faint, but real.