The Forge

This is the place you have lived,
all brick and fire, hammers and anvils,
a place of forging,
of bending

your stubborn iron
into something beautiful
and new,
useful

and yet always changing,
your tired metal softened by fire,
hardened by the shock
of cold water

again and again,
wondering,
always wondering
when, or if, God will be done with you.

About This Poem

“God isn’t done with me yet.” How many times have we seen that bumper sticker? How often have we thought about what that means, and how much he can change us and remake us, and how often, or why.

For those of us who like simplicity and stability, it is a frightening, and often tiring, reality, not just a bumper sticker.

The photograph was taken at the blacksmith’s forge at the Shelbourne Museum here in Vermont.

Tom

PS – The PDF is an experiment. More and more people ask if they can download this poem or that one for posting on a bulletin board at work or on the icebox at home, that kind of thing. I decided to try making PDF’s, without all the clutter of the blog, to make those kinds of things nicer and cleaner. If you use this one, or like it, I’d love to know, so I will know whether to keep doing this or not.