Feb 2011
one comes to this life
and one must seek comfort
and ease and one’s status
and this comes through careful nurture
and meticulous culture;
wealth and power flows from one to another
and one’s ease comes through the discomfort of the other –
the fool must fill the coffers of the cunning;
the weak must prop up the strong
and so this is the secret of life
and one must seek a group that can sustain one
and one must sustain that group too
and so keep all others in place under thumb, toe and fist
and so that the ease one comes to in life
flows constant like the rich living rivers
and one must seek comfort
and ease and one’s status
and this comes through careful nurture
and meticulous culture;
wealth and power flows from one to another
and one’s ease comes through the discomfort of the other –
the fool must fill the coffers of the cunning;
the weak must prop up the strong
and so this is the secret of life
and one must seek a group that can sustain one
and one must sustain that group too
and so keep all others in place under thumb, toe and fist
and so that the ease one comes to in life
flows constant like the rich living rivers
Number 6 in a series of 8 poems “Songs for Sansho the Bailiff”.
This series of poems is based on the film “Sansho the Bailiff “ (1954) by Kenji Mizoguchi. Set in medieval Japan, the film tells the tragic tale of a family that lives by the father’s ideal that one should be just to others, even if that goodness is inconvenient to oneself. The family is separated and endures all sorts of suffering in living this ideal
This series of poems is based on the film “Sansho the Bailiff “ (1954) by Kenji Mizoguchi. Set in medieval Japan, the film tells the tragic tale of a family that lives by the father’s ideal that one should be just to others, even if that goodness is inconvenient to oneself. The family is separated and endures all sorts of suffering in living this ideal
