Stolen Time

 I haven’t been able to keep up with octpowrimo but the great thing is the low stress of the whole event. The prompt for this particular poem is a perfect illustration of  this, to basically revisit another prompt. Not reinventing the wheel is perfect for me tonight.                                                                        

被盗时间
Stolen Time

Preparing for you to leave
we tried to reclaim time spent on the cliché of living a normal life.
Pretending we could go on forever
like some long married couple
who would separate
when death deemed it fit to pilfer one of our ancient spirits.

We embraced the fantasy of growing old
 without the influence of illness, or foreign wars.
In our world the need to follow in your father’s righteous footsteps
would never rear its noble head.
 
Death would wait. 

Until word came from the East.

Brothers-the only survivors.
One living in exile
The other a six year old child 
protected by his mother’s loving care for over forty two years.
He didn’t understand what we knew all along.
He had a right to believe life would never change.

We had no such luxury
we attempted to steal it—thieves of denial.
We wouldn’t survive without it,
facing day after day
under the weight of the sword
balanced just above our necks.  Z~