The Departed

The young have mirth,
While we are sapped and weary
Another tale ends in the middle of my story

What comes to pass?
We’ll be but an illustration
Of what’s remembered by those in our wake

Trials and midnight oil,
We’ve burned it all
And morning after night,
Amassed at the muezzin’s door,
To regale ourselves with laughter and stories of war

But, at length, we each depart,
In our own separate direction,
Our tired minds bent beyond the point of our inflexion

Yet the stories carry on
Till legends they become,
Our time immortalised in the red rays of the sun

Not a bittersweet song
Or a textbook story, we walk on
Constantly striving to achieve
But a glimmer of what we had during our arduous journey’s reprieve