Arched back, steady hands, eyes that never waver
Stands upright as a tree he does,
yet graceful like a flower
His eyes stay focused on the
singular aim, watching everything that transpires
A drop of sweat itches his brow, his
fingers feel him perspire
He stretches the string taut feeling
terse pulls and strains
He stretches it more with all his
strength unmoved by the pain
Pain that emanates from
fingertips and stings his collar
And brings the edge right to
unmoving eyes fixated on the aim
‘The string may snap,’ he knows, anytime
in his hands
Leaving him bruises, underserved
and crass
Yet he cannot but stretch it the
best he can
For he trusts the string, and the
tying hands
He knows his bow will not disappoint
him
And his intents the arrow will
obey
The only unruly part being the string,
Subdued by nothing, apart from
faith
He trusts the bow, the arrow, and
the string
And knows they believe in him in
every way they can
Yet he cannot help but wonder
The day when the contraption may
strain his hand
Some day before he realizes, the
string will grow too strong for him
Or rather, he will grow too weak
for it
And it shall snap uncontrollably retracting
against him
Touching every fiber of his being
His eyes will feel the first
sting,
But his hands will be the first
to react
Followed by a numbness in his
brain
A scar on his soul that another
dear one has snapped
The string, would suffer gravely
for this offence
It will lose all its strength
Its essence being stripped away
from in an instant
Only to be discarded and
forgotten, as it was never of any consequence
He knows that it’s the eventual
fate of every string
And has scars to tell the tale
Yet the only way he knows is to
believe
That there’s one more shot within
his range
And so he stands tall, unmoving unafraid
Aware of all the pitfalls, but
uncaring all the same
The mark is all that is, the shot
is all that matters
For as long as it lasts, he and
the string are one and the same
Vishal Gupta
31
Jan 2022
