Song of the Powers
Mine, said the stone,
mine is the hour.
I crush the scissors,
such is my power.
Stronger than wishes,
my power, alone.
Mine, said the paper,
mine are the words
that smother the stone
with imagined birds,
reams of them, flown
from the mind of the shaper.
Mine, said the scissors,
mine all the knives
gashing through paper’s
ethereal lives;
nothing’s so proper
as tattering wishes.
As stone crushes scissors,
as paper snuffs stone
and scissors cut paper,
all end alone.
So heap up your paper
and scissor your wishes
and uproot the stone
from the top of the hill.
They all end alone
as you will, you will.
And here is the paper.
Tim
Wong
Russell
MW 8
4/28/14
The Curse of Conflict
Humans are fickle creatures; they
are corrupt, tainted, and bitter. Conflict and war, while occasionally fading
into the background, will always surge forth again. The nature of war is summed
up subtly yet simply in the game “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” A deeper look into
the game is given in David Mason’s poem “Song of the Powers,” a relatively
short piece that examines the mind of each object and how it relates to the
other two. However, there appears to be an even deeper meaning to the game that
not even Mason fully realized: the game “Rock, Paper, Scissor” is a reflection
of the nature of human conflict and war as shown in both the words of David
Mason as well as the ideas and implications one can draw from the poem. The
isolating nature of power, the hidden attributes of each object in the game,
and the never-ending cycle of war are all themes in the poem that require
careful examination in order to fully understand.
The primary idea that Mason presents
in his poem is that power isolates. Each object has its own unique strength
and, subsequently, its own weakness. In the game the stone is greater than
scissors, which is greater than paper, which is then greater than the stone. In
the first stanza of “Song of the Powers,” the stone says that it is “Stronger
than wishes / my power, alone” (5-6). The first of the lines shows that the
stone, through brute force as suggested when it says that “I crush the
scissors,” is stronger than wishes and plans (3). The second line hints at
Mason’s theme of isolation. The paper smothers the stone “with imagined birds,
/ reams of them, flown / from the mind of the shaper” (10-12). Finally, there
are the scissors, which are constantly “gashing through paper’s / ethereal
lives” and shredding its wishes to shreds (15-16).
When one examines the poem’s
individual elements, it is much easier to see its message as a whole. At the
end of his poem, Mason says that the stone, paper, and scissors “all end
alone.” This would indicate that each individual object, through the defeat of
its opponent, stands by itself at the end of the day. This isolation is the
goal of the game itself; the player with the mightier object wins but wins only
to stand alone. However, there is a deeper meaning that can be taken from the
poem. Each object represents a particular strength that is linked to conflict
and battle. The stone represents brute force, the paper represents the strength
of the mind, and the scissors represent reality. The stone, through pure
strength, can overcome the logic and probabilities that the scissors present.
In much the same way, a commander with enough willpower and determination can
emerge victorious from a situation that would have appeared one sided
beforehand. An example of this would be the battle of Red Cliff, also known as
the battle of Chi Bi. In the battle, which took place towards the end of the
Chinese Han Dynasty, the combined forces of Liu Bei and Sun Quan battled the
armies of Cao Cao, which were more than twice as large as their own. However,
through will, courage, and a dash of advantageous weather, the two leaders
managed to defeat Cao Cao and forced him to retreat. However, the stone’s
weakness is that it can be either dissuaded or smothered by paper’s words and wit.
On more than one occasion, potentially devastating battles have evaporated
because of one persuasive speaker. Other times, brute force and will were
defeated through tactics and strategy. However, these are things of the mind,
and the harsh reality that is represented by scissors too often rips them to
shreds. The scissors are things of logic and probability; they are plans,
numbers, and truths. But once again, these things are often conquered by the
will, strength, and determination of the stone.
This leads back to the idea that
those who wield power, whether it is born out of strength, intelligence, or
logic, will eventually stand alone. This idea is the binding element in Mason’s
poem. He states that “They all end alone / as you will,” indicating that just
as the stone, paper, and scissors find themselves isolated at the end of the
day, so will we (27-28). This isolation is also a result of the simple yet
vicious cycle of war. After the battle of Red Cliff, despite the victory won by
the joint forces of Liu Bei and Sun Quan, the two leaders eventually parted
ways when Zhou You, one of Sun Quan’s greatest commanders, died. This left Sun
Quan greatly weakened and of no more aid to Liu Bei. Even if the paper smothers
the stone, it will eventually be scattered to the wind by the harsh reality of
the scissors. It is a never-ending cycle; war will exist for as long as man is
on this earth.
And so, we can see that “Song of the Powers” is not
only a story about how power isolates, but a symbol of the vicious cycle of
war. While Mason may not have originally intended for his poem to represent
this constant struggle his words certainly give that implication. What at first
was a simple children’s game was personified through the words of David Mason.
What at first was a simple personification of a children’s game is now shown to
be a critique, whether intentional or not, of the eternal cycle of war and the
curse of conflict.
