“When I make a campfire the forest learns
of my poverty."
-Don Domanski, Campfire, Selected Poems, 1975 - 2021 Xylem Books
Rumi once wrote a line I am only just beginning to understand.
When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.
And dear reader my world has suddenly become very full, and I am digging into all my soulful practices to keep going. And, yes, that includes reading as much poetry as time allows—scaffolding for the soul.
That’s my way of gently saying that this month’s musings are the Diet Coke version or the “Here’s one that I made earlier”.
I am playing my community chest card and advancing to GO.
So, here’s a little story for you, first published in the wonderful zine For The Culturally Curious from the ever-talented
.Big love.
Will
DANCING WITH FIRE
Dusk.
Falling light.
Darkness creeps once more across the Levels.
The winter sun giving up the last of its pale heat.
And a Journeyman.
At the far edge of the settlement.
He is plying his trade, in a grey stone building.
Heat and bituminous fire.
Clunk, clunk, clunk, goes the hammering rhythm of heavy metal.
—
SUNRISE
Long shadows stretch out against aching limbs.
Ground frost.
Crisp under heavy boot.
And standing at the entrance, an unfamiliar shape.
Thin frame.
Youthful gaze.
Face marked by a deep scar along the nose.
Signs of a life lived beyond his age.
Strangers don’t come by this way, thought the older man.
Turning a stiffened collar up against the incoming chill, he asks,
“What brings you out here young man”.
Boot knife, it turns out, blunt as butter.
Small beer for a Master Blacksmith.
But you trade what you can when you have small mouths to feed.
—
EVENING comes.
Rumours start to flare in the crowded local inn.
Suspicions ignite over stolen post,
Burning through the conversations.
Cooled only temporarily by large jugs of sweet Somerset cider,
All eyes begin to point towards the man of fire.
—
DAYS pass at the busy forge.
But on this morning, the hammer rests against the cold anvil.
And raised voices emerge through the stone walls.
Heated allegations.
The lad with the scar burns with fury.
Untamed fire in his belly.
—
NIGHT falls and night falls.
The blacksmith makes his way home to his family.
Fast-moving nimbus clouds momentarily make way for moonlight, before the lanes are plunged back into murky darkness.
From out of the shadows, he appears.
Gleaming blade.
Unmistakable features on his young face.
And the man falls hard to the cold ground.
—
CHURCH bells chime and church bells chime.
Seven strikes mark the hour.
Soon upon the gravelled path, the local priest walks.
He discovers the warm but wounded body.
And the man from the edge has his fate,
Held in the arms of the man from the centre.
—
This is the true story of my four-times-over great-grandfather, who, in a bizarre twist of fate, was brutally attacked by the knife he’d sharpened only a few days earlier.
Luckily my grandfather was found in time by the local vicar. Another strange turn of events! Because blacksmiths were considered ‘edge people’ back then and distrusted for their apparent alchemy.
Now there comes a point in any young man’s life that an internal fire begins to burn. Without it, we get depression, lethargy, and a lack of focus and drive, but untamed it can become a destructive force.
Old traditions tell us that if this fire is held with care, honoured and tempered by cool loving waters, it can become a source of steel-like strength, courage, and fired-up passion for things like social activism.
There’s an old Irish saying,
“Never give a man a weapon until he has learned how to dance”.
I think Blacksmiths understand that.
And I think we, and society, have the responsibility to help our young folks learn how to dance with their fire.
Rites of Passage: I - Robert Duncan (excerpt) These are the passages of thought from the light air into the heavy flesh until from the burning all the slumb'ring dark matter comes alight, the foot that has its reason in bright ratios it would measure hardens and beats the trembling earth, reaches out of measure into the hoof that tramples pleasure and pain compounded into a further brightness.
Men, Myth & Meaning - A Gathering For Men, November 8th - 10th, Suffolk, UK.
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2. Attending to True Self in Turbulent Times. November 15th - 17th, Amerdown, Somerset, UK.
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Did you write that story Will? That is phenomenal. 🙏❤️
Oh I like that poetic storytelling! 💕 Keep going. 🙏