Returns

I opened the door to the blacksmith shop with care
since the hinges, pock-marked and encrusted
with rust, were almost more than the frame could bear.

There was no floor. I walked on dust instead.
Tools turning to dust were everywhere
scattered in my great-grandfather's shed.

Horseshoes, the pincers that held them in the fire,
then laid them on the anvil, glowing red,
had now cooled together a hundred years.

A hammer sat on its cylindrical head,
long wooden handle projecting in the air,
waiting, still propped against the anvil's side,

to be lifted by the hand that dropped it there,
the hand that worked the bellows, now long rotted.
I pumped it and the ashes barely stirred.

Hearing the rustle of leaves, I turned my head.

At my back, in the half-open door, the sunlight edged

between the darkness here and the brightness there,

like the blacksmith's face, peering back from the dead

at the shadows left behind - his works, his heir.