The Blacksmith

Warren Molton

  
Both of my grandfathers wielded hammers for a living. Grandpa Lane was a blacksmith and carriage maker. He took great pride in telling his grandchildren that he once built the inaugural carriage for his governor. Grandpa Molton was a master carpenter and home builder whose buildings still stand after a century of battering time.

Grandpa Lane's shop smelled of coke fire and horse sweat. The clinker floor, leather harness, bellows blowing a blue-to-white-hot flame, hammer, tongs and anvil shaping all things iron, before they were dipped sizzling into the water vat, created a wizard's den and my childhood's most enchanted environment. When a horse jerked against my grandfather's arm, holding the great leg like a vice, my grandfather merely yanked back and pounded nails into the horse's shoe.

When I was almost five, my older brother, Ronnie, and I stopped by Grandpa's shop to say goodbye on our way home by train. Grandpa paused at his forge, reached under his leather apron and found a dime, which he flipped through the air to me across the shop. It plinked on the cinder floor and disappeared. "Let 'er go," he laughed and flipped another.

This one plunked into a tub of beer with its block of ice beside me at the door, which he kept with a gourd dipper for any man with a great thirst. My grandfather walked over, plunged his huge arm deep into the pungent, yeasty brew and recovered my dime. He smiled, patted me on my head, gave me the coin and said, "Bye, Preacher Boy," the nickname he gave me because I was named for a minister.

Memories of that day are full of sounds, his hammering that greeted us, the dimes plinking and plunking, his laughing and patting my head with his big hand, my heart pounding with regret as we walked away. I did not want to leave. Ronnie, ten years older, picked me up, wiped my tears, and carried me to the station three blocks away, consoling me.

The earliest hammering time we know is the sound of our mother's heartbeat coming to us through the waters of her womb. It is our first measuring of anything. It is the first beat establishing a rhythm to life, the ground of music, and the steady sound we seek the rest of our lives among the signs of health.

Time is our most common and universal measure. Its throb is persistent, pervasive, relentless and unstoppable. lf the heartbeat is the first hammering we know, how good to return again and again to its most loving chamber, the arms of love, where we listen for that primal drumbeat signaling deep union with our deepest loves. These are the bonding beats of lovers. Remember them. Seek them. Cherish them. Across time. In the echo-chamber of the heart.

Warren is an old friend whose poetic Muse continues to be his old friend as well. I am very pleased to welcome him back to our pages. 607 W. 66th Terrace, Kansas City, MO 64113. (wmolton@kc.rr.com)

If you enjoyed these reflections, we invite you to discover other thoughtful and personal writings in the pages of The Best of Pilgrimage and Pilgrimage Vol. 26 and Vol. 27. These can be ordered directly from this website; please click on "How to Order."

 

Copyright © 2004-2007 David Barstow. All rights reserved.