Devotion of a Swordsman

(Dear reader - this poem suffers from being re-configured by the blog template - the lines in the original are longer and less broken - )


Musashi says : when they enter in, they enter with their hands, their heads, their feet
However, their core lags behind - I know one man, downed by brain cancer
Who entered fully. When his guard was knocked down, he rested his sword to one side
Baring his breast to be cut open - bared himself - to be cut open

He died in a state hospital. His name was not given to him by his parents.

Aristotle says : friendship is possible only between equals.
Reflect on this, as images pass before you, of sunny days, of rain,
Of conversation, and of loneliness. When you call these up, mining them
For understanding, you find nothing is given.

You are a sun to them, you are a planet of theirs. This is the meaning.

I say : I am coming to it slowly. I can't say how.
Thanks to a smokeless foundry, no fire, no iron-
A singular, ghostly furnace. Cutting clumsy things
To their substance, with the insubstantial sword.

For insight.

Must be as close as possible, that contact is complete.
When it moves, it moves, advance becomes retreat,
And the opposite as well. Entering fully, doubtlessly.
(Who shuns union in the name of sanity shuns life.)

At the same time orbiting unconcerned,
As distant as a last planet in cold, elliptical remove,
The only systemic body remaining secure to the end.
(Who cannot stand aloof in the name of fear goes mad.)

In this way, somehow, fantastically, to have given everything
While remaining unscorched in the concluding supernova -
Flames lick the perihelion, but I am elsewhere.