There is a sadness in my heart,
a softness settling
over the fields.

My old friend,
Didomous,
is tired now.
His tricks, once sharp as steel,
have softened at the edges.
He is no longer the powerful man he was—
no longer the captain shouting orders
across the battles of my life.

Yet sometimes,
I catch the glimmer of his old fire—
a playful jab.
a boyish grin.
And for a moment
he is alive again,
light on his feet,
as if the years have not weathered him.

But like an old soldier
who has survived too many winters,
he feels the pull of rest.
His end is near,
and so begins his descent
down the hero’s path—
a path worn thin
by all the battles
he fought for me.

No longer needed
to protect what isn’t there.
A soldier with no war,
armor growing heavy in his hands.

And parts of me
mourn this dying
of my friend—
loyal, fierce, misguided only
by love.

His absence reveals
something tender.
A quiet birth,
a new presence rising
from the long shadow
he once cast.

The heart knows:
every ending is an opening.
And so I bow—
grieving, grateful—
to the one who served,
and to the one who comes.