Juxta Position

[Barry]

Nakedness in action
Exposes not weakness
But reveals strength

Peace,
Barry

[Yejun]

When love with one another so
Interinanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
Defects of loneliness controls.
We then, who are this new soul, know
Of what we are compos'd and made,
For th' atomies of which we grow
Are souls. whom no change can invade.
But oh alas, so long, so far,
Our bodies why do we forbear?
They'are ours, though they'are not we; we are
The intelligences, they the spheres.
We owe them thanks, because they thus
Did us, to us, at first convey,
Yielded their senses' force to us,
Nor are dross to us, but allay.
On man heaven's influence works not so,
But that it first imprints the air;
So soul into the soul may flow,
Though it to body first repair.
As our blood labors to beget
Spirits, as like souls as it can,
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtle knot which makes us man,
So must pure lovers' souls descend
T' affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend,
Else a great prince in prison lies.
To'our bodies turn we then, that so
Weak men on love reveal'd may look;
Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.
And if some lover, such as we,
Have heard this dialogue of one,
Let him still mark us, he shall see
Small change, when we'are to bodies gone.

--from "The Ecstasy" John Donne

This is, roughly speaking, the second half of Donne's poem. I see this one in showing, at least on my reading, the importance of the body in "spiritual" matters. Does yours not show the same thing?

[Barry]

To be honest, I don't "get" a lot out of the quoted piece. But I agree with your statement. Spiritual beings, I believe, envy those of us with bodies. For we can both feel and know what they can only know.

My piece was inspired by a recent rereading of Drawing of the Three, by S. King, in which one of the characters participates naked in a gunfight. Afterward, he's told by the lead character, the gunslinger, very much the same thing, if in a less poetic form. I believe it to be profound truth. Anyone who can fight naked, maintain courage, be it figurative or literal nakedness, figurative or literal combat, deserves honor.

Thank you for the comment.

Peace,
Barry

[mtmynd]

the naked ninjas... sounds like a kinky comic book that may do quite well in sales with the pictures alone. give them a good story and you might be on the road to financial freedom, you think?

[Barry]

LOL...Yeah, it'd probably be right up there with my graphic novel Non-sequitor Boy.

Peace,
Barry