Honor

He remembered the long walk;

through darkened temple halls,

passing priests who bowed in shock,

to see Alexander within their walls.

Hephaestion was at his side,

amid these spires and ruins of Troy,

now a companion-conqueror who traveled wide,

since the lecture days they shared as boys.

Twas not duty that brought them here,

nor the footprints of Xerxes’ trail,

but to be away from the eyes of general peers,

and to gaze upon themselves without veil.

They bowed before the tombs,

of Achilles and Patroclus in perfection,

and wondered amid burning incense fume,

if they had found reflection?

Alexander reached for his hand but found it gone,

now alone in Siwa with naught but sorrowful mind

and finding the oracle’s gaze deathly drawn

he released the grief that left him blind.

Said the oracle, a hero I shall make him,

and you shall honor your companion at every shrine,

said Alexander, I will remember him with a lover’s whim,

for Hephaestion was forever and always mine.