“The Stillness of Death”

 

From “Song of the Nightingale”.  this is the first episode of “Song”.  A few readers were curious about this series, so…..

Lady Nyo

 

 

“My heart, like my clothing
Is saturated with your fragrance.
Your vows of fidelity
Were made to our pillow and not to me.”
—-12th century

–

Kneeling before her tea
Lady Nyo did not move.
She barely breathed-
Tomorrow depended
Upon her action today.

Lord Nyo was drunk again.
When in his cups
The household scattered.
Beneath the kitchen
Was the crawl space
Where three servants
Where hiding.
A fourth wore an iron pot.

Lord Nyo was known
For three things:
Archery-
Temper-
And drink.

Tonight he strung
His seven foot bow,
Donned his quiver
High on his back.
He looked at the pale face
Of his aging wife,
His eyes blurry, unfocused.
He remembered the first time
pillowing her.

She was fifteen.
Her body powdered petals,
Bones like butter,
Black hair like trailing bo silk.
The blush of shy passion
Had coursed through veins
Like a tinted stream.

Still beautiful
Now too fragile for his taste.
Better a plump whore,
Than this delicate, saddened beauty.

He drew back the bow
In quick succession
Let five arrows pierce
The shoji.
Each grazed the shell ear
Of his wife.

Life hung on her stillness.
She willed herself dead.

–
Death after all these years
Would have been welcome.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted , 2015

 

‘Lord Nyo’s Lament’ from “Song of the Nightingale”

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http://amzn.to/1Cm8mZi

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Oh my wife!

My feet take me over mountains

In the service to our lord

But my heart stays tucked in the bosom

Of your robe.

—

–

Lord Nyo’s Lament

–

–

The song of the arrow

As it arced into the sea

Was as tuneless

As a badly strung samisen.

–

Gun- metal clouds

Stretched across a dull horizon

The sun still asleep

As he should be

His quiver empty

His heart, too.

–

When had the callousness of life and death

Become as comfortable as breath to him?

He had become too much the warrior

And too little the man.

–

His distance from his wife,

From most of life

Was as if some unseen object

Kept them ten paces apart.

–

Perhaps it was the cloud-barrier

Of earthly lusts which obscured

The Sun of Buddha?

Perhaps he should pray.

–

What God would listen?

Then it came to him

That joker of a Buddha, Fudo

With his rope to pull him from Hell

And his sword to cut through foolishness-

Fudo would listen.

–

Fudo knew the quaking hearts

The illusions embraced

To stomach the battlefield

The fog of drink,

To face life

In the service of Death.

Fudo would save him from

The yellow waters of Hell.

–

He remembered those years

When she could bring him to his knees

With the promise of dark mystery

Between silken thighs,

And the glimpse of her white wrist-

A river of passion

Just beneath the surface.

How he had steeled his heart

Believing himself unmanned

For the love she induced!

–

Three cranes flew low to the shore,

Legs streaming like black ribbons behind.

Three cranes, three prayers, three chances

To find his way back

Bound up in Fudo’s ropes,

Prodded in the ass by Fudo’s sword.

–

He would write a poem

On a bone-white fan

To leave on her cushion.

She would know his love

She would know his sorrow.

–

The sea took his arrows

Beyond the breakers,

The glint of sleek feathers

Catching thin rays of light.

–

An unexpected peace came over him

As they journeyed far from his hands.

–

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted,  2015, “Song of the Nightingale” is published by Createspace, Amazon.com, 2015