Doug Anderson: When the Soldiers Came

They found the old monk Cheng Liu
sitting in meditation at the Temple gate
and shot him full of arrows.
When they dragged a young monk
out of the temple, he laughed 
and shouted, Fools, Cheng Liu 
has been dead a week,
you’ve killed a dead man!
They killed him with an ax.
But all day General Hsiang could not
get these words out of his mind.

Copyright 2021 Doug Anderson