Simbelmynë: A Song for Elendili

In the Shadow of the West,

where mountains remember the names of the dead

and stars carry their voices across the sea,

I stood graveside.

No flowers crowned the stone,

no Simbelmynë to soften the silence—

only earth, bare and waiting.

There should have been

forget-me-nots crystalline as morning frost,

trillium white as a soul at rest,

or blossoms older still—

those that once crowned Gondor’s hills,

rooted in songs the Firstborn

still whisper to the wind.

I remembered him—

my father’s voice weaving dragons from air,

his eyes lit with constellations,

reading The Hobbit as if it were scripture.

He did not fear death.

He welcomed it—

the Gift of Ilúvatar,

as only the wise do.

And her—

faithful beyond the circles of the world,

who followed when her time was called.

But I…

I wished they had been Elves—

undying,

their spirits waiting just beyond the bent path,

on the far shores of Aman.

For in our home,

Tolkien’s tale became our marrow—

a myth of light and loss,

of beauty and becoming,

of memory that never fades.

And I learned—

to clutch the dead

is to deny the turning of Time,

to forget that love

is not meant to be hoarded,

but to pass through us,

like light.