C◉LCΞRΞΛLΛ

Prose poem

Musashi

° Musashi

What else could it be but the active imagination, set free to blossom
like a flower bud in the heart of spring?

Or, lovelier still,
a Japanese rosebud...

Or, since we happen to be speaking of the Japanese...

What magnificent gardens they have!

Fine gravel, tiny stones carefully sown,
arranged as though combed,
through which, here and there, you see a ficus rise,
or some bonsai,
or even Buddha’s tree standing as the central pillar.

The state of Zen is evoked.

Those curves traced by the comb
are the very energy of the space,
the way it flows.

And thus...
the flow is immortalized.

What extraordinary people,
how, with so few words,
minimalists as they are,
they manage to capture the mystery of life and being.

Only Takuan could.

At the moment when Musashi stood at the very height of despair,
frustrated,
one step away from yet another psychotic break.

For only a man who devotes thousands of hours
to focusing upon the finest thread that can possibly be perceived
could ever arrive here.

Especially when he feels it is something of his own doing,
something he himself has placed in his path,
something that tortures him
and that he cannot unravel
precisely because he is trying too much.
Too hard.

Only Takuan.

Silent.
Smiling.
Serene.

He made his way toward him,
one step at a time.

The gravel crunched beneath his sandal.

As he drew closer to Musashi,
drumbeats sounded from Musashi’s chest.

So intensely had the heavenly silence descended
that the blood surging toward his head
could be heard like a river in flood.

He who seeks to be invincible beneath the heavens
cannot belong to the earth.

With his stick serving as a cane,
he traced a perfect circle in the earth
around Musashi,
with the same gentle grace
with which he wielded his brush upon canvas.

Then he let the stick fall at Musashi’s feet
and, smiling like an innocent, playful child,
went peacefully on his way.

And Musashi...

Musashi had lost the margins of his mind.

The circle was the sky.

Perfect.
Whole.
Without corners.
Without opposites.
Without halves.
Without ends.
Without flaws.

It was a mirror.

It was...

The Zen bud coming into bloom.