Ode to the Faded

by Santiago

It did not go out with a bang,
rather died slowly and quietly in the dark
with nary a whimper but only a pathetic sigh.

Twas never a burning thing, a raging pyre,
but only a soft pleasantness to wrap oneself in
and then leave behind.

It weathered not the storms of time, like some immortal rock,
but sank into a sea of silence,
so tranquilly that the sailors never noticed it was gone,
or knew it had really been there at all.

As incorporeal as a ghost, but not as haunting,
a spectre of those who had never died,
but also never lived,
one would wonder how and when it sprang into being,
yet never really care.

Still, I do not regret having known it,
not for the tales which it never yielded,
nor for the breath which lacked all force,
but for simply having known something at all.