Confessions of a Samurai

I love swords. I enjoy movies with lots of action and great sword play like Gladiator, The Last Samurai, Lord of the Rings and of course, the classic scene between Wesley and Inigo in The Princess Bride. I don't replay the "twue wuv" part--I repeat the sword fight over and over.

My mother's bloodline is samurai and my father is from the McGregor clan, so I am hopelessly enamored by the beauty and power of a sword in the hands of a master. I wish I had a real "katana" (a samurai sword) but if we ever had one in the family, it is long gone. We gave up bushido during the Mejii period.

It's strange but I don't identify with the warrior wielding the sword...I identify with the sword itself: the way that it is made with all the pounding and folding of the metal on the anvil and the fire of purification.

FORGED IN THE FURNACE

I’m being formed in the darkness.
The only light comes from the fire.
The flames are purifying and I am lifted in Your hands
to rest on the anvil while You bring down the blows
of Your hammer to shape me.

The process seems endless.
When I cannot take another blow
You put me back in the fire.
When I cannot stand the fire any longer
I find myself on the anvil again.

I never saw my shape.
I never understood what You were forming me into.
But now I am resting in the cool water of Your Spirit.
The sizzling heat and the blows are but a dim memory.

For I am tempered steel now;
shaped into a double edged sword.
The process was hard and painful to make me harder still.
Now I am a weapon in Your hand forged for warfare.

BROKEN THINGS

You can tell a lot by broken things:
A sword that was broken

can still cut off the enemy’s hand.
And Strider the Ranger

can still be lethal to the enemy.

Re-forge the sword
renew the man…

double the strength
for twice the damage.

Nothing is more deadly than
a sword made new

in the hands of a man made whole.

All the years of waiting
only tempered the steel in Aragorn.

Now the man and the blade would be one.

KEEPING WATCH

***This poem is from the scene in Fellowship of the Ring
where Aragorn is watching over Narsil, the sword that was
broken***

Silently you keep watch over your sword.
When would it be re-forged?

Arwen silently keeping watch over you.
When will you receive your due?

A woman waiting to be fulfilled…
A man waiting for his destiny…
A sword waiting to be used again.