is a less sledgehammery approach than requiring awk. I don't recognise the OP's shell syntax (unless it's intended more as pseudo-code), but I think at least in bash, you'd have problems with embedded whitespace in filenames.
Find and Xargs have the option nul-separated output records specifically for this reason.
It's Plan 9's rc shell... I didn't use cut because I've got in the habit of using awk for quick shell tasks. I'll have to remember cut, though, since awk is definitely using a sledge to drive in a thumbtack.
Also in Plan 9, we typically don't have spaces in file names, but I think when we do they come out quoted... as far as I know there's no xargs.
Find and Xargs have the option nul-separated output records specifically for this reason.