"
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I must copy down two or three poems from my other diary.
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What are we puny things fighting about — in the midst of eternal time and boundless sky?
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Born in a tiny country, I am sacrificing my little body for a glimmer of hope.
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What a nation! It takes pride in spilling the life-blood of a hundred thousand people over one inch of the map.
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Another day spent guarding the shadows created by the sunlight that comes through the barred window.
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I know that the cliff drops one thousand fathoms, yet I rush down the path without turning back.
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I lie motionless in the cold night bed and listen time and time again to the stealthy sounds of sabers.
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I lie on my back for half a day, looking through the three-foot window and watch the leaves of the cypress tree sway in the wind.
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The gingko tree in the winter exudes a sense of reverence. It looks like a holy man coming from the snowy mountains.
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This wretched love. It continues to smolder like the smoke that keeps rising from glowing ashes.
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My last day will soon come. I smile as I think about my life. I can think about it forever. Is the strong, courageous child of revolution the same person as the weak, frail, weeping child? Is this me?
"
— from Reflections on the Way to the Gallows by Japanese anarcha-feminist Kanno Sugako. Kanno was hanged four days after writing this.
