Every good blacksmithy has a name. Mine doesn't really, since its been a transient smithy so much and will be again at some point. But, on the old home place there is a small adobe building I'm slowly renovating to be a permanent smithy for the ranch. Right now, not-quite-falling down, three walled, half-roofed and crumbling, but good things will come. There is also some sort of a monkey skull (yes, really) laying on the floor, that I'm debating nailing to a sign above the door. So, the Dead Monkey Falling Down-Adobe Forge is its name for now.
Everything is heat, light and motion. Energy and movement, fluidity and violence and everything on the edge of burning down. There are moments of sudden, zen-like, stillness on the part of the smith, but he is alone, an island in madness. While he is still, the fire will burn, the oil in his quench will smoke, the air will be filled with sound and smell. The light will flicker and dance on the broken walls and into the eternity of energy.
We are strange priests of arcane things. Of our sins we fathered the alchemists and the engineers. For a time, if it was built we had our hand in it, and then our sins outstripped us. As relics we returned to our solitary and smoky chapels. We dance, ancient in our ways and wordless prayers of struck steel.
Everything is heat, light and motion. Energy and movement, fluidity and violence and everything on the edge of burning down. There are moments of sudden, zen-like, stillness on the part of the smith, but he is alone, an island in madness. While he is still, the fire will burn, the oil in his quench will smoke, the air will be filled with sound and smell. The light will flicker and dance on the broken walls and into the eternity of energy.
We are strange priests of arcane things. Of our sins we fathered the alchemists and the engineers. For a time, if it was built we had our hand in it, and then our sins outstripped us. As relics we returned to our solitary and smoky chapels. We dance, ancient in our ways and wordless prayers of struck steel.
2 comments:
Nagrom-- do you make knives?
That's actually why I started blacksmithing. I was teaching myself to make knives via the stock removal method, but wanted to learn how to smith, so I sought out an opportunity to apprentice briefly. I, unfortunately, didn't follow up with that like I should have being a fickle sixteen year old - But once I was in college I got a forge of my own up and running and started working it again.
I've come to really love blacksmithing/metalsmithing in general, and make everything from traditional fireplace tools to cigar ashtrays and jewelry. Knives are still a big part of it.
I'm working on a couple right now, actually. A combat/utility type knife for a soldier friend about to deploy, and a general utility knife for a cowboy neighbor (it'll be one of the few damascus castrating knives around, I imagine).
By the by, I've got not problem with you calling me Morgan. I'm using my real full name in writings and on other public social media now, and have no need for even minor anonymity, so it's all good.
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