A man sits in the fetid summer rain
prayer beads resonate, filling his ears
with the click clack of numbers and figures
The harvest needs to be calculated
Bushel for bushel of rice for Shogun
and his army mobilizing for war
.
It's difficult to keep count in sometimes
When the monk in the alley slaps the ground,
lamenting for his temple long since razed,
when the nightengale sings a fury for song
imprisoned by noble's dark gilded cage,
when the raindrop shudders on dark brown beads,
but he counts on, for Shogun has his son
To dishonor this war he does not know
would have his family killed for treason