The Execution of Goemon

Note: Ishikawa Goemon was a Japanese outlaw who stole gold and valuables to give to the poor. He and his young son were publicly executed after an assassination attempt on Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

The outlaw holds his son above his headto save the boy from boiling alive.

Or the outlaw holds his young son above his headthen plunges him in the boiling oil.

In all versions we need the fatherto show us how to die

with arms uplifted as if in praise, as if he couldraise his child to paradise.

*

A riddle:    Which version of this thief    shows the most mercy?

    Which version of the son    the heaviest?

A riddle:    Who died first? The father    who killed his son swiftly

    or the father who died    knowing his boy was next?

*

In the great war a soldier’s teethwere battered from his mouth

for their gold crowns. In this wayhe became monk-like, a vow of poverty

smashed into his face.

*

Because he diedexperiencing such cruelty

he must have also knownenlightenment, a moment

of such clarity when mercywas all that was left

and all time became now and all tastewas blood and rice and miso soup his mother made

when he was sick and knew it would bedinner time because no more

teeth or gold or sons or fathers, no valuein beating a dying man in a wrecked field

inside the gaping war-mouthfull of oil and fire and men

bellowing, armedto the teeth, willing to gnash

the bone of a fatherfor the sake of their sons.

*

Dear Deities of the Great War,dear Emissaries of the One Stillness,

before you belch up bombs and bodies,I ask you break my jaw

with the butt of your riflesso I may know which words are most precious.

When I speak again it will be as onewho knows peace like an ache

of healing, like an arcof a bullet

that misses its target.

*

When my father found the courageto hold an immeasurable tenderness

in his hands, it was then he finally heldhis granddaughter up.