Three hide
under the Rashomon.
One wishes for a pipe,
spits on the ground,
claims that all men lie,
but he listens to his neighbors
as they hide from each other,
hide from the rain that falls
like the swordsman,
fallen once, falling forever,
his bodies might as well be
stacked like logs,
the very same the woodsman sought
in dreams of ax and sawing
dead tired for lack of mule or wagon
by the path of Yamashina,
not knowing that three days later
in the courthouse garden
what a strange thing the truth will become,
pushing limits of imagination
like Kurosawa,
patient as he makes his movies
unafraid to show the sun
and unafraid to catalogue
the depths of human feeling.
And that is how the rain falls.
The priest learns that not everyone
can be a hero.
Necessity is the root of the matter,
for very little is evil
when you need to live.
But still the woodsman
tired, hungry, long-in-tooth,
becomes an uncle
to end his lie.
And truth falls,
like rain,
through the air.
***
This was the result of another in-class assignment in my Experience of Poetry class. Assignment follows.
Inspiration: "Heroic Simile," by Robert Hass
Title has to be "Heroic Simile." Four stanzas, don't have to be the same number of lines. You also must use each of the following words at least once: Limits, Path, Hero, Air, Movies, Imagination, Patient, Pipe, Spit, Mule, Wagon, Neighbors, Woodsman, Tired, Logs, Stacked, Root, Tooth, Swordsman, Days, Sawing, Uncle.
You have ten minutes (I get five in class, plus the time it takes about half the class to read). Just in case you were wondering, a heroic simile (sometimes "epic simile") is just a really long comparison using "like," so called because stuff like the Odyssey is chock full of 'em. Made-up example: "Odysseus was really darn clever, just like Perseus was when he fought the Medusa, cuz ya know, you can't look at the medusa or it'll turn you to stone, so Perseus went and got this shield, see, and etc."