Blade Man

Ichi!
Ni!
San!
The katana cut the air
Making contact with the orange
He had tossed,
Blade meeting flesh at eye level
Cutting the fruit precisely in two,
Then following with the short sword
To impale one half on it,
While the other half
Met the point of the long one,

He lowered the blades to his lunchbox
Placing the orange halves with the rest of his lunch,
Returning Long and Short to their sheath
As he sat on the grassy shoulder of the country road
Out in the middle of Kansas,
He contemplated his life as he ate
Looking down the gravel road
That was as straight as his blade,
He finished eating and climbed back into the cab,
Lowering the blade to just the proper angle
To meet the Earth and to cut,
As he put the road maintainer in gear
He looked up at the horizon,
Saying out loud,
“There is a time to use the Long Sword,
A time to use the Short Sword,”

The sharp blade cut a new ditch,
He looked up briefly at the farm pickup passing by,
Then returned his focus to the point of the Long Sword.