The Bow

It is a new morning, and I am picked up whence I was slouched against the wall. It is my master. He lays me across his lap and slathers me with wax, and then he wipes my limbs and riser with a rag. It is painful; the wax is staunch and the rag is coarse, but when at last I suffer all the grains in my being to soak, and he polishes me with a gentle cloth, it becomes delightful. I am lithe and ready to bend.

My lower tip is bound in a noose of string, set on the floor against his foot, and my master stands me on a slant between his legs. He holds my upper tip near his shoulder and begins to bend me over his back. My limbs are recurved, that is, they naturally curve away from where they are required to be, so that it takes an excruciating force to pull them to such a position. In fact, it is impossible for a piece of wood so stiff as I to endure this tension and compression without breaking. But I am able because of his ingenious craftsmanship, and his firm and steady hand, which at every instant my trembling limbs try to twist out of. But my master does not let me go, and when my body is finally arched to fit the contour of his back, he secures me with the second noose. I am strung.

He holds me under his arm and goes out. He is silent, but I know today is an important day. Every day that he uses me is important. While we walk to the range, I remember when he first called to me in the forest, when he cut me from my roots, hewed me into pieces. Then he put me back together—laminated my fibres one by one with glue mightier than any sap I had once thought strong. He carved me with torturous tools: saw and chisel and planer, and at last the sanding block. But I remember when he bent down and blew away the dust upon me; he breathed into me, saying, ‘You are a bow,’ and I was.
When my master first began to practise with me, I wounded him several times. He wore no armguard, and no glove—neither on the right nor the left hand. I grazed his arm many times when he released me, and his fingers bled from holding my string. Twice, even, I pierced his hand by shattering an arrow when he shot. But he suffered my awkwardness, and now our wills are one.

At the range my master is greeted by the others, though he is not welcome. There is a competition, but he was not invited. He is too old, and his equipment is not good enough. He lays me down and watches the others compete. The others are made of aluminium and carbon fibre, the strength of their limbs is compounded by gears, they have rubber dampeners and trigger mechanisms and pinpoint-sights. They are all more powerful and accurate and efficient than I am, but my master picks me up and holds me in the sunshine, saying, ‘You are much more beautiful than they are,’ and I know that in his hands there is no shot we cannot best.

When the competition ends, the archers go into the hall for the ceremony of awards. My master rises and takes me with him to the first target. The others have not retrieved their arrows; the heart of each target is crowded by a bristle of previous shots. My master chose an arrow from the quiver. He tilted and skewed me sightly, rested it on my shelf, and knocked it to the string—the coiled part of the string called the serving. He drew me apart while raising me to the level of the target, and pressed the serving into his cheek at the edge of his mouth. Thus is the anchor: when all his might gloriously harnesses all the energy of my limbs into a single point, where for a moment I feel the beat of his heart running down my string and into my very grain. Then he released me. The arrow hit the true centre, splitting the winner’s. I am exhausted, but my master does not let me rest. I remind myself that it by his strength that I am able to shoot, and, though it is further, the second target is the same as the first.

The third target is seventy metres away, and when I am poised before it my master says, ‘You have never shot this far,’ but it is not a question; I am given no opportunity to protest. Though, as I have said, I am not the weightiest of bows, the first and the second were close enough that my attitude was not required to compensate for the arrows’ flight. But now at such a distance, I will surely have to aim far above the target. And so my master holds me. I have no sight whatever, because my master never attached one to me; there is no point of reference on my body which indicates the trajectory of the arrow, none save a hint from the arrow itself. Otherwise it all depends on my master’s judgment, and I must rely on him, for I am blind. He draws me once more, raises me high, sets the anchor of my string to his cheek. He plans his shot by the beat of his heart – in the space between pulses, when all is utterly still – and I count them: one...two….. one…two—release… ‘Well done, faithful tool,’ says my master.

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