Osan in Songtan

Your landing strips shine

under the light of the memory sun—

but I have never seen you.

Everything in you is sharp and triangular,

time too.

Young officers meet on your concrete ground,

contradicting each other:

ancient tongues serving a new folly.

For you are the daughter of duty,

and thus deny bread

to marry the thundering sky.

Osan in Songtan.

The echo of hatred rumbles beyond the border

while brothers stack bombs

on fields of oyama flowers.

The destinies of us all

fly on wings of steel

amid the clouds of a halved sky.

by Jason R. Forbus