She watched his silence loosen from her name,
like winter thawing from abandoned stone.
No letters burned, no desperate cries remaineda"the love he carried for her had grown cold.

And in the quiet space her shadow left,
he turned to me with tired, honest eyes;
not seeking rescue, not escaping grief,
but searching for a place where truth survives.

I held no triumph in her faded ghost,
for hearts do not unlove without a scar.
Yet slowly, like dawn stitching light to earth,
he learned how near forgotten hopes still are.

Now when he speaks, his voice belongs to now,
not to the memory of what broke apart;
and I have learned the gentlest kind of love
is helping someone find their way back to their heart.

Penned by my hand on Gosday, the 18th of Sapiarch, in the year 19 AC.