Carl Phillips - Only Portions of the Map Still Legibly Survive

Having had their moment or, if luckier, the better part
of a day in the sun as proverbed, it was time to move on.
Some died, not because of this,
                                                       but as if so. Some retreated
into the memory of their earlier triumphs, others chose
not so much to remember as to fill those in who had never
known of said triumphs, having been born so much past
all of that—what can history be
                                                       expected to mean,
honest...