Like rolling banks of velvety fog

did Silence wander in,
quietly blanketing the unawares land,
suffocating, blinding.

Cool wisps swirled round
the figures lone,
quietly imprinting each huddled soul
with cool damp drops of misty dew.
None escape the subtle
omnipresent fog of pressing ignorance.

Gentle moans, through whiteness, sounded,
until far off, beyond hooded knoll
and sheltered dell, a trumpet call
echoed, piercing the immutable
silent wall of blankness.

Faint blushes then stirred the cold pallid bodies,
who lay quite still 'neath the grayish cloud.
A few murmurings, hesitant,
followed by the quietness, incessant.

The trumpet sounded a farewell, forlorn.
More like Death's eery knell
than the spirited cry of intelligence.

Opalescent gloom quietly slipped in
behind the passing notes,
purging all faint traces.

The slumbering denizens dozed,
oblivious to even the obvious.
The silence, with multi-tentacled
wispish claw, drifted on. 

Here lies Fred,
Who was alive, and is dead.
Had it been his father
I had much rather;
Had it been his mother,
Better than another;
Had it been his sister,
No one would have missed her;
Had it been his entire generation,
So much better for the nation;
But since 'tis only Fred,
Who was alive, and is dead,
There's no more to be said.