In the hold of the gondola, I descend toward the summit,an inward tug beneath and above.The cable hums like a monk’s low trumpet,war-eagle am I, in the atmos of the dove.

Below, the town in polite rectitude staresinto a map unrolled in lines of light.The dark sea beyond, forever knowing,speaks never of wrong or of right.

I hover just in-between its clasp,my aimful drifting not seeking less, nor chasing more.The past in me is subtly shifting—battles once fought, remanded to lore.

In it, in me, the place where the sword made plea,where samurai bowed to the rifle’s reign.Now all is still—but as inside me,the old path murmurs, sharp with strain.

I lived once by the way of straightness,measured breath, and ordered word.Now age invites a gentler greatness,a shape more stream than sharpened sword.

Once bladebright, sharp with custom and of code,I walked paths of order, of precision and worth—but the world did not ask for sharpness now,only the current. Only curve.

Autumn speaks in lacquered airs,its voice held tight in sujiko’s shell—a birth available and enclosed, presented and undeclared,a silence deep I know too well.

What is surrender, if not a curvebent softly toward the time to come?The tide does not explain its swerve—it simply rises, and we become.

To yield is not to fall or stumble,but to bow with care into the wind.The proudest stone must learn to crumbleto let the sacred moss begin.

Like the hot icy echoes of lost battles won,in the bawling silence of the hills are such thought traps spun;yet in the repelling magnetism of purposeful yearn,It remembers itself, but does not seek to return.

The mountain behind holds memory’s gate.The sea before sings what must be.In killing the drift do I locate my weight—flying, not—but floating free.

So downly ride I, yet upward drawn,centripetally acting and acted upon.My new oldness unshutteringly enveloping me,my kata cast in air and chaotic tranquility.