On Learning to Work with Metal

What will you learn from the metal?
Will you hear how the torch speaks to the cold iron
How the scars of weld heal broken pieces
And makes them new and stronger
Will you see the bend of new shapes
And wonder at their independence
As the metal moves and yields both
On its terms and yours?
Will you learn to temper
Making something new of something old
And will you gain from each?
And what language will you speak and smith?
Will you cut and braze
Temper and render
Weld and wonder.
Are there stories worked
When hard becomes soft
And soft becomes strong?
What will you learn from the metal;
What will it teach you?
-P