the air weighed heavily upon me,
thick with the smoke of someone else’s dead.
worlds from home, I stood upon that cliff,
and howled your name to the ceaseless stars.
what a petty creature you’d been, in life –
reckless, feckless, friendless.
and now, in death, how they crowned you in wildflowers and set you out to sea,
lit the pyre, and left you to drift like the graceful arm of the galaxy far above.
somewhere further inland, the war cry sounds.
long live the king.