A response to this.  Please read it first.

I left with your blessing to tread another shore
Where I found warmth, and love
But more than that
They called me their own,
and I swore an oath of fidelity
A child always leaves her parents to cleave to her spouse
It is the way.
You were free and brave
And so was I.

Each visit, seeing
Subtle signs each time
Telling a tale of age and frailty
And of insidious subsidence
The decay beneath.

I put them aside.
I did not believe.
I was proud of what you were
What you still were
What you never were
What you dreamed and manifested
Those thrice thousand days.
I believed in the exception.
I believed in truth
I believed in my birthright.
I believed you were immortal.

Belief has been dying for a thousand days
Denial did not stop it.

What now, beyond the darkness?
Beyond the oblivion?

I stand here, on my northern shore
In darkness
Polaris glistens above, the constellations still whirl
To the south, the stars are falling.