Her

This poem I wrote was inspired by a story told in A. Helwa's book Secrets of Divine Love about tawakkul on Allah.

The wandering Samurai found himself behind

An old tavern in Kanazawa, Japan surrounded

By 13 Bandits. Sword in hand and tongue in cheek, 

The warrior burst in hearty laughter: “I’m sorry 

For the poker match you guys…especially you Mugen!

I was really hoping you could bring Home 

That new rug for the Family. Maybe if you had one more 

Warrior, the winds might have blown in your favor! HAHAHA!”

Then, flowing through the frigid still air, 

A gleaming figure cuts through the electrifying 

Tension, and swiftly sends the men to their 

Thunderous ends. Through the echoing groaning and grunting 

Of 13 fallen voices, silence befalls and unveils: Her. 

She smirks, shrugging her Herculean swing off as though 

It were a kiss on a chalorous Spring day. 

The wondrous pair embark on their honeymoon only 

To find themselves facing a Typhoon. As all the forces 

Of Nature go to war and every particle crashes into its moiraic 

Partner, the Samurai stood glaringly still. The Heroine walks

The creaky plank to the front of the boat, knees buckling

At every uncertain step. “Why does your face not flush

At the sight of our appointment in Samarra? Why are you not afraid 

Sweet boy?” protested the warrior. In one swooping breath 

The Samurai’s sword finds itself at the edge of its paramour’s 

Jugular vein. She sounds a hearty laugh and the Samurai inquires:

“Why do you laugh? Are you not afraid!”

“No” she whispers, “I know you love me and seek only to realize my Truth.”

“Well I too entrust myself to the Beloved One who animates me. The Guardian of both Our destinies.

How then can I fear?”

Only a Hobo

“Listen to me Aaron, everything you see under the sun and stars owes its very existence to the Balance. The wind and seas. The powers of earth and Light. All that these do is well and rightly done within the Equilibrium. But now, men hold the power to control the world. Man must learn to do what leaf and whale and wind do naturally; it is for us to keep the Balance. Everything that exists has its true name." - Sparrow Hawk, Tales from Earth Sea

I’m a hobo in this world, a traveling vagabond that arrived in a train station where the passengers wore no faces, only their bright colorful spirits. I’m heading up North to find a hill, filled with the presence of those whose soul I’ve passed and loved.

I’ve grown to admire vagabonds. Wanderers of the Earth who trek from place to place with no incentive but to live. I’m romanticizing huh, with their burlap sacks hanging off wooden rods containing all their worldly possession. It’s easy to be in awe of homeless travelers when I rest cozily in my own home. I mean something else entirely however, the spirit of a hobo, is truly a marvel. It can be a lonely life of constant necessity, surely, they travel from city to city in search for a bed to sleep in or food to eat. If this world’s governments and buildings were to collapse back to the nursing grounds of humankind, I bet things would be different. In that world a vagabond would be the ruling spirit of nature, because then and now, they are primarily moved by freedom.

The Hobo is passing through in this life, a pitstop in a material world occupied by a grand Illusion, a world they visit just as easily as they depart from. A Hobo has to travel light, out of necessity or choice, a hobo only carries their essential nature; they leave behind all things that weigh them down. For a Hobo, little of what society has elected as important is useful. Accolades don’t keep them fed, respect, honor, power don’t quench their thirst, money and sex don’t warm them for very long. The more they carry, the heavier the load, for a traveling Hobo, that matters! Whether they travel to escape, for adventure, to find something they’ve lost, or to return Home, their path towards the horizon is weighed down by attachments and greed.

To keep their spirits light, afloat and in motion, the Hobo has no choice but to seek out the lifeblood of this world, in their own veins, in streams of this lifeworld. To travel with their hearts full of love and strife, their eyes light and dark, to travel empty and void so that the spark of creation can ignite their spirits again and again, so that the waters that fall from the forge of life can course through them without resistance. Only surrender to the elements. At the gates of our own Death, our souls have a long journey back to the One they came from; a Hobo knows better than to cling onto the orbit of Creation when returning Home. 

Field Trip to the Museum of Human History by Franny Choi

Everyone had been talking about the new exhibit,

recently unearthed artifacts from a time

no living hands remember. What twelve year old

doesn’t love a good scary story? Doesn’t thrill

at rumors of her own darkness whispering

from the canyon? We shuffled in the dim light

and gaped at the secrets buried

in clay, reborn as warning signs:

a “nightstick,” so called for its use

in extinguishing the lights in one’s eyes.

A machine used for scanning fingerprints

like cattle ears, grain shipments. We shuddered,

shoved our fingers in our pockets, acted tough.

Pretended not to listen as the guide said,

Ancient American society was built on competition

and maintained through domination and control.

In place of modern-day accountability practices,

the institution known as “police” kept order

using intimidation, punishment, and force

We pressed our noses to the glass,

strained to imagine strangers running into our homes,

pointing guns in our faces because we’d hoarded

too much of the wrong kind of property.

Jadera asked something about redistribution

and the guide spoke of safes, evidence rooms,

more profit. Marian asked about raiding the rich,

and the guide said, In America, there were no greater

protections from police than wealth and whiteness.

Finally, Zaki asked what we were all wondering:

But what if you didn’t want to?

and the walls snickered and said, steel,

padlock, stripsearch, hardstop.

Dry-mouthed, we came upon a contraption

of chain and bolt, an ancient torture instrument

the guide called “handcuffs.” We stared

at the diagrams and almost felt the cold metal

licking our wrists, almost tasted dirt,

almost heard the siren and slammed door,

the cold-blooded click of the cocked-back pistol,

and our palms were slick with some old recognition,

as if in some forgotten dream we did live this way,

in submission, in fear, assuming positions

of power were earned, or at least carved in steel,

that they couldn’t be torn down like musty curtains,

an old house cleared of its dust and obsolete artifacts.

We threw open the doors to the museum,

shedding its nightmares on the marble steps,

and bounded into the sun, toward the school buses

or toward home, or the forests, or the fields,

or wherever our good legs could roam.

© Franny Choi 2015