Poem: the samurai’s sword

he held it with exquisite care
with fingers worn from wear
and a soul as old as the ocean’s sigh…
he held it high
and proud, and with all the grace
of a strand of silk, floating in the space
of the memories of the night.

and then the sounds
grew… louder, distant drums as one
as the eagles and lions with men’s limbs
came storming over the shore
that pain and countless more had dimmed
and which the waves barely found,
to that point at which his sword stood its ground,
even as its master prayed
for that fate that only ever awaits
those with destiny at their door.

and then the sounds grew still,
quiet as the graves that this day would fill,
and the world had only three sights:
one of crimson and of dread, of red
and the tiny drops of life that bled
out of each and every slice
as the wind whispered goodbye
to the stars, one by one,
as they winked out into the light.

oh how it weaved its magic spell
its heavenly voice singing a song
no one else could hear
whose meaning no one else
could tell
as it whistled its way round that long
autumn breeze on that clear dawning day
as the sword, with no one else to kill
sang its last quiet hymn
while the man that held its beauty and its breath
exhaled one last, final reverent moment
and then, just as quietly… fell.