“I’m not sure what it is, life’s puzzle.”
– Jim Harrison
Tokugawa’s sword
Like silver cranes on the wing
Life’s puzzle is solved
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qbit 
You have met the requirement of a worthy haiku; the first and last lines can be interchanged with no loss to the poem. I have to learn more about the Shogunate to understand your haiku in full, but it seems to have been deeply researched and painstakingly assembled. Bravo!
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Thanks!
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Life’s puzzle is solved if the lost sword is found, but it is like silver cranes on the wing – lost and flown away…. Am I understanding accurately? (Maybe the sword is stuck in a rock somewhere and the rightful knight… no, never mind.) I see balance in your Haiku, even if I am slightly off-balance in understanding.
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Here is what I was hoping for, might have been too ambiguous: So life is a puzzle. Tokugawa, like Alexander the Great cutting the Gordian Knot, can solve that puzzle with his sword. But as this is Tokugawa and *not* Alexander, the ;life puzzle he solves for you is probably cutting your head off. The Zen Master points to the cranes as also the solution/non-solution. Life/Death, two sides of the same puzzle. OK, OK, I know that is a lot. I was hoping to hint, to glimmer some of that.
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Great story stuff! Pearls before this swine-ette as I know nothing of Japanese / Shogun lore or history. Now that I know this I can look at your Haiku through new eyes. 🙂
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Yes, helps to know who Tokugawa was, and how ruthlessly he would solve complex problems simply and quickly with a blow of his sword. But I want to hold my Zen Master to the same standard, the koan of the cranes as a sword cutting through discriminating consciousness, yadda yadda.
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