Elegy
To Robert Ross
Your dextrous wit will haunt us long
Wounding our grief with yesterday.
Your laughter is a broken song;
And death has found you, kind and gay.
We may forget those transient things
That made your charm and our delight:
But loyal love has deathless wings
That rise and triumph out of night.
So, in the days to come, your name
Shall be as music that ascends
When honour turns a heart from shame…
O heart of hearts! … O friend of friends!
–Siegfried Sassoon
Picture-Show, 1920
About Victoria Janssen
Victoria Janssen [she, her] currently writes cozy space opera for
Kalikoi. The novella series A Place of Refuge begins with
Finding Refuge:
Telepathic warrior Talia Avi, genius engineer Miki Boudreaux, and augmented soldier Faigin Balfour fought the fascist Federated Colonies for ten years, following the charismatic dissenter Jon Churchill. Then Jon disappeared, Talia was thought dead, and Miki and Faigin struggled to take Jon’s place and stay alive. When the FC is unexpectedly upended, Talia is reunited with her friends and they are given sanctuary on the enigmatic planet Refuge. The trio of former guerillas strive to recover from lifetimes of trauma, build new lives on a planet with endless horizons, and forge tender new connections with each other.
