One Of The Day's Dead Poem by Daniel Brick

I was almost a prince. My father
favored me over his first-born son.
He was delighted as I excelled
again and again in the arts of fighting.
He gave me his retired great sword, and said
holding my shoulders tightly, "Practice until
this sword is an extension of your arm."
I trained with that beloved sword day after day
until it became part of my body. But my father
also engaged the SophistAnagoras to teach me
how to think. From him I learned to plan
a strategy, to balance strength with cunning,
to think beyond just the killing stroke.
When Anagoras told my father I was his finest
student, my father's pride in me made me
the proudest of sons. I listened to my father,
to my teachers, to the prophet Calchas
with his knowledge of the gods and goddesses,
to old and seasoned warriors, to a priestess of
Isis. Oh, I was so prepared for the battle over Troy.
On the voyage across the Aegean, I sharpened the point
of my father's sword so it would puncture armor.
I was prepared. I leaped onto Trojan shore
with a dozen others, and looked around
for my first victim. But behind me a Trojan warrior
lifted a huge rock, and smashed my brain into my skull.
Hermes guided me into the Land of the Dead. His face was
sad. I didn't know a god could be sad, but Hermes was.
"This is your human fate, ephebe. You lived a good life,
making your father proud. Do not think of yourself
as just one of the day's dead. You had your shining moment,
on the plains before Troy, and it was a heroic death."