What I Was Afraid Of · Track 78 · middle
Yari
Yari — Japanese spear. Register: ancient. This song is sung BY this weapon, in first person, about the one thing IT was afraid of. Find the fear that is true of this specific object, not a generic one.
No audio yet — generation pending.
Lyrics
[Intro] [Verse 1] You rest on a stand of polished wood, I lean in the shadows, catching the rain. You get the oil and the quiet room, I get the horse's breath, I get the strain. The farmer's boy grips me with freezing hands, And I become the long edge of his mind. A single bamboo mekugi holds my tang, As we wait for the cavalry, flying blind. [Pre-Chorus] You were the officer's gleaming sidearm, I was the infantry's reach. You were the poetry read in the courtyard, I was the blood in the breach. [Chorus] So what am I afraid of? The ink on the scroll. The centuries washing the battlefield clean. They call you the weapon that carries the soul, And I am just firewood, lost in the scene. I am the forest that broke the advance, But they will only remember your gleam. [Verse 2] My three-sided steel doesn't dance for the eye, It slips through the lacquer, heavy and flat. We stood in the mud while the banners blew by, While you were drawn late, just to finish the act. No one writes songs for a wall of sharp poles, We just did the labor that purchased the land. Lowered in unison, taking our tolls, An ugly necessity, calloused and grand. [Chorus] So what am I afraid of? The ink on the scroll. The centuries washing the battlefield clean. They call you the weapon that carries the soul, And I am just firewood, lost in the scene. I am the forest that broke the advance, But they will only remember your gleam. [Bridge] When the peace finally settled, they worshipped your curve. They put me in storehouses, out of the light. I was a tool, you became the word, A beautiful fiction rewriting the fight. [Outro] I held the line. I held the line. But history only remembers the shine. Look at the painted screen. Where am I?