The Ronin's Fate

 

Arms of lead, feet of clay,

Weak of spirit and heavy of head.

The swirling rain in the lamplight glistens,

A ghostly glow in the deepening murk.

 

The aching fatigue, the drooping eyelids

The grinding teeth, the broken sleep,

The bleeding heart, the teary eyes,

Stalk along the lonely path.

 

Alone and distant, fearful and worried,

Can there be lights to brighten the dark?

The murmur of passing conversations,

Half-heard, half-understood, pass through.

 

The world is clad in a thick film,

Opaque and oppressive, angry and vicious,

As distance yawns, and the gap

Between us all grows to a chasm.

 

Hopeless? Perhaps. The click of weary heels

Echo like a solemn funeral march.

The goal is far and ever further.

The lights, once so bright, drift into twilight.

 

Delusions of grandeur are torn asunder,

As a spirit of glass wavers in the wind.

How can battle be joined, justice be done

When the shield droops, when the sword is weighty?

 

The fight is long, the night is deep

That dense wet curtain that coats the earth

Stretches on and on to a limitless horizon

And those tiring, clicking heels must soldier on.

 

Perhaps the ache is too much.

Perhaps the spirit is too broken.

Perhaps those interminable weights

Can never be lifted, the mist will never clear.

 

What to do when all avenues are sealed?

When all strategies are exhausted,

And Fate’s relentless appetite 

Looks set to devour the world.

 

Can the age-old fight really be won?

Or is an inevitable defeat the only way this ends?

Perhaps, like the beaten ronin, bathed in cherry blossom

One must kneel and bow one’s head

To a sentence long ago received.

 

Never.