The Blacksmith

Lately, I have begun to think about God
while I hammer the yellow-hot steel
with a twelve-pound cross-peen, bending it over
the anvil horn. According to Ecclesiastes:
That which is crooked cannot be made straight.
But I have come to my family's farm
this winter to mend the fences
we put up years ago when I was young.
I hear the horses snorting in the field.
In the dark dusty shed, my forge fire glows
as molten-bright as an incinerator.
My eyes ache. I hold the hammer, as heavy
as an urn. The old tongs my father forged
clamp down on the hot hinge like a wolf's jaw.
I have learned his dying art.
The anvil rings. Sparks shower the dirt floor.
By twilight I will be unrecognizable,
smudged like a miner with soot and dust.
The coal smoke rises, as the souls
of the dead are said to, heavenward.