The Way Before the War

A true samurai master
teaches war
only last,
after art,
after love.

For love is the first form of form,
the earliest blade,
drawn only to carve
harmony from chaos.

Art is the child of this love,
stillness in motion,
violence dissolved
in beauty’s embrace.

Only then may force be named,
not as destruction,
but as balance in motion:
a wind that bends,
yet never breaks
its vow to the center.

Force is symmetrical,
a quiet geometry
engraved in all things:
the arc of a swallow,
the bloom of a sword,
the silence before a clash.

You do not learn it.
You become it.
It becomes you.

A law older than language,
older than gods
who once sculpted men
from their own questions.

This is not comprehension.
It is remembrance.
It is living with intent,
like a flame that owes nothing,
yet burns
in perfect justice.