The Psalm of a Warrior

It has been a hard life for far too long. Many times it seems that my feelings of the present and fear of the future mix together to create a very sour porridge. Yet, how else can life be after so long this way?

For many years, I have fought constantly. From one conflict to another I have charged with all the strength of youth until it became the wisdom of age. Bitter battle after bitter battle I have waged war until all I know is war.

But, sometimes I sit in the quiet of the day and question how much longer can I continue to fight. When will I see the end of my strength and the rise of the darkness that tries at every crossing road to defeat me?

I wish I could say that I truly believed that this is training for something better. That, though the sword is stuck in my hand today, one day it will be the plow again. Hope is not what drives one in the fog of war. What I have learned is the only path there is survival.

Yet sometimes I get a glance of the past that cause the acrid smoke and fields of blood to dim a bit. It comes as quickly as it goes, triggered by a smell or sound, it reminds me of that which once was. When the sky was clear and blue, and the child I was, lay unrepentant in the summer sun from ignorance of wrongdoing.

Oh, to once again know such innocence. To once again catch fireflies in the evening twilight only to release them without harm. Those days are done. But one thing has come from the stripping of my desires and the thwarting of my want. I have once again found a love for the mundane. Where once I only saw their drama, now I desire their commonality.

If my legacy is anything; if my name lives on with those that have seen my heart. Let that legacy not be in silver and gold. Do not remember the great battles I have won. Let it be of kind words and of one that served and loved. For now, I will continue to fight without the worry of the day I can no longer. Sword to flesh, strike flows into perry. dodge into an attack; the weapons of war my only friend.