apprentice   you have taken up the hammer and the tongs the thick leather apron and the gloves you beat the glowing iron against the anvil but your real tools are fire and might   you chose to be a smith a worker in obdurate iron at first it is enough to know only that you must bend yourself to the forge you must beat sparks from the iron and force its liquid essence   you chose to be a smith you must begin without knowing what will take shape sword or plowshare pail or nail or nothing at all the hammer will not decide this nor the tongs nor the anvil   you will decide this you are deciding it with every blow you will know when to return the iron to the fire and when to plunge it into the water hissing and spitting and tempered to your purpose   © Michael Fleming Lake Forest, Illinois October 1998   (Appeared in Southern Poetry Review 54:2)