John V Palaiologos: Turning to the Wall

καὶ ἀπέστρεψεν Εζεκίας τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πρὸς τὸν τοῖχον,
καὶ ηὔξατο πρὸς κύριον…
“And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall,
and prayed to the Lord…”
—2 Kings 20:2 (LXX)

I
Winter withdrew its favour. The palace lay in stillness,
its stones holding the residue of vows
spoken by emperors long buried—
a gold-lit catechism of dominion now muted by cold.
Through corridors dimmed by age
he walked without retinue or herald,
a man whose burden had outlived
the empire he was sworn to guard.
The ikon-lamps flickered as he passed,
their trembling halos soft upon the air.

II
He paused where councils once assembled,
where envoys bent the knee
and treaties were sealed with hopes
already fraying at the edge.
The saints on the walls looked on—
remote as lost kinsmen—
their silence neither blame nor blessing,
only the deep stillness of unchanging gaze.
He felt the breadth of that silence in his bones.

III
Past stewards and tired officers
he entered the inner chambers
where the breath of the world falls thin.
There the bed waited—a narrow shore
between the living and the lived.
He lay upon it gently, as though
the body remembered how to yield
before the mind would grant its leave.
Outside, the city kept its vigil of endurance.
An emperor—basileus kai autokratōr Rhomaíōn—
whose sceptre had become an inheritance
for hands that proved no stronger.

IV
At last, in the quiet appointed to all men,
he gathered the remnants of his strength
and made the gesture Scripture preserved:
the turning of a face toward solitude.
Slowly, without lament or plea,
the emperor shifted toward the wall,
entrusting what remained of breath and light
to the austere mercy of obscurity—
and to the uncrowned hours that follow every reign.