Prince Otsu before his execution

 

Life isn’t as short
As some say.  As we
Age we forget the details,
Whether when executed at age
Twenty-five or thinking 
Back at eighty while listening
To a familiar Concerto.

Even imagining what was
To come and setting my
Seabag down to wait for the bus
To Camp Pendleton, and later
Watching the Yellow Sea
Come across the seeming miles
To lap through the wire fence at my feet,

It is very little amidst
All that was and is now forgotten.
We aren’t fashioned to recall it all
Else why would we go on?
Better to sit still remembering
All that was wonderful
And would never be as good again.

Prince Otsu experienced fleeting
Glimpses of what he would miss.
Alas, it wouldn’t have been as he
Imagined even if his executioners
Never Arrived and even if he lived to eighty.
He would merely sit by a fire and fail to recall
Much of whatever it turned out to have been.