RESOLUTION

Years ago, leaving capital gates, vowing

it was forever, I came to this resolution,

and it’s fiercer still, now I’m so suddenly

old and frail as a wisp of reed or willow,

my wife and kids sick of cold and hunger,

neighbors laughing at my oddball ways.

Singer of sad songs out harvesting grain,

angry recluse at ease gnawing on snow,

I’ll lie a thousand years under pine roots,

shadowy wind scouring the empty tomb

until fierce heart and liver alone remain,

fused and transformed into golden iron

and cast into a cosmic sword. It offers up

blood of those clever-tongued ministers,

then lifted from its case in the armories

it’s carried forth by glorious front ranks,

three feet of blazing starlight ridding our

ten-thousand-mile peace of vile demons.

Once you see this divine marvel, you see

all that Mongol filth isn’t even fit to kill.