Day is forcibly struck by an unworldly dawn
Of energy that fires, molds and clarifies
Colors as the night is withdrawn.
I. The Forgery.
Like a Picasso painting, stark, vigorous light
Provokes shadows around a blacksmith’s shed.
A barren landscape is born from bright
Blends of orange, yellow, brown, blue, and red.
A striking place comes from the nothing of night.
Welded into this rugged world by cosmic arcs,
Man is set into the scene by creative coercions.
Sensation awakens his imagination and sparks
Awareness of the refinements and infusions
That brand him with a creator’s trademarks.
Bearing the hammer marks of demons and angels,
He stands in the smithy; hidden in art, by art.
Light pries through cracked, wooden walls
And lulls the inner darkness to rest and part
With the secrets of the forge and its tools.
The dim chiaroscuro makes a scant setting
That outlines the coal, the water, the instruments,
The machines, and the means necessary to bring
Fire, shape and firmness to the pure elements
And dross that were struck in the beginning.
Yet, he is the only warm thing in this chamber.
The flattened bellows draw upon his breath,
And he is bent to pledge a tiny orange ember
That kindles the coal, and smokes life into a hearth
That inflames and heats his ambitious temper.
His hand is moved to feel the blushing fire,
The slack-tub, the hammer, and the tongs.
His lungs heave with the bellows and inspire
His chrome eyes to glance at the anvil’s strong
Face and glimpse the point of building desire.
Impetuous life has fired the forge, adding smoke
To the world and color to the inside of this forgery.
Mind and might are then soaked and stoked
To alloy with the mettles of the creative reverie,
And ensure that art, like life, is remade and broke.
II. The Work.
These visions yield to sounds
as he whips rounds
Of iron into the fire.
Flames snap to acquire
Wincing metal rods
As the bellows huff and nod.
Wind from the blast pipe
Swears low and swipes
At crackly coal and coke.
A rake jostles to poke
At the growling energy
And shake the fire’s lethargy.
Heat whispers its way
Out of the orange-hot tray
And hustles through
Leather wear and into
Straining bone and muscle,
While bellows puff and bustle.
His strained eyes search,
And his sweaty hands lurch
Over a rustic tool rack
For ways to extract
A glowing bloom from the heat.
The bellows rise and retreat.
Tongs squeak to pinch
The steel and wrench
It from the cussing
Inferno, whose harassing
Sparks sputter and die.
Then the bellows are put aside.
Art is bound to the anvil.
The anticipated thrill
Of heating and hammering
The metals of the artistic thing
Brings to him a brittle smile,
and the forge chills for awhile.
III. The Desire.
In the hush and pause
His hand withdraws
A hammer from the mantel,
And force is raised until
Ambition arms his mind.
A blacksmith is defined
By the forge, the tools
And metallurgical rules
That seize soul to steel.
A heavy clang seals
The bond and begins
A stirring peal and chain
Of taps and hammer falls.
The radial cadence enthralls
Him to beat and hit the art
Until its glowing heart
Darkens to a strict crust.
Then the work is thrust
Back into the black fire.
Lungs wheeze and respire
Stale air into the burn.
The forge takes another turn
At heating the construction,
As the blustery invention
Resuscitates the play.
The stoker wipes away
More sweat and pulls
From the molten coals
A screaming hot iron.
He smiles and strikes on.
While the anvil yells
And the hammer compels
The stamping of a doll,
Clash and clangour extol
The glamour of shaping
And the joy of making.
The rounds of hale blows
And hefty hammer throws
Have drawn out a likeness.
The strenuous process
Makes his beaten bones quiver,
And his aspirations waver
As the loudness of it all
Is finally, silently unraveled.
His hammer hits the ground
And both hands surround
Spindly tongs that esteem
And embrace his figurine.
IV. The Art.
Art released from the anvil
Is a thousand degree marvel.
The statue, held overhead,
hotly exhales a flight of red,
Metallic comets that glow
And burst in a lively show.
Alas, it’s a fleeting spontaneity
That erupts from this artistry.
Confused fireworks shower
him with lifelike favours
That are soon snuffed out
By airs of cold, black doubt.
For as the heat wanes
The bashful blacksmith pains
For some miracle or magic
To arouse and temper his work
with the ductile liveliness
present in his own awareness.
Yet, against his perseverance,
The iron child has a dull essence.
So lifeless that nothing vivid
Pulses from its bleak, pallid,
coal-fired complexion.
In frantic desperation
He plunges his art and faith
Into a dark, cold water bath.
Then the beautiful doll murmurs
And sheds its heat in shivers
That warmly amend his whole
Body and re-fire his broken soul.
Night is quenched from the sensational
Heat of day; and a blacksmith’s chilling work,
of breaking and forging colors is beauty.