Dearly Beloved
by Michael R. Burch

for Suzan Blacksmith

She was

Dearly Beloved by her children, who gather
to pay their respects; they remember her
as they clung together through frightful weather,
always learning that Love can persevere ...

She was

Dearly Beloved by family and friends
who saw her great worth, even as she grew frail;
for they saw with Love’s eyes how Love’s vision transcends,
how her heart never faltered, through cyclones and hail ...

She is

Dearly Beloved, well-loved, sadly missed ...
and, while we mourn the lost days of a life too-soon ended,
we also rejoice that her suffering is past ...
she now lives in the Light, by kind Angels befriended.

And if

others were greater in fortune and fame,
and if some had iron wills when life’s pathways grew dark ...
still, since Love’s the great goal, we now reaffirm her claim
to the highest of honors: a mother’s Heart.

Keywords/Tags: Suzan Blacksmith, elegy, eulogy, epitaph, memorial, tribute, remembrance, farewell, goodbye, last respects

clang. clang.
The metal sung joyfully each strikes.
Passion is a dancing flame.
The greatest passion can churn
the sea.
Yet it can also fade like flickering embers.
A passion, can leave behind lasting debris.

The Forge
by Michael R. Burch

To at last be indestructible, a poem
must first glow, almost flammable, upon
a thing inert, as gray, as dull as stone,

then bend this way and that, and slowly cool
at arm’s-length, something irreducible
drawn out with caution, toughened in a pool

of water so contrary just a hiss
escapes it—water instantly a mist.
It writhes, a thing of senseless shapelessness ...

And then the driven hammer falls and falls.
The horses ***** their ears in nearby stalls.
A soldier on his cot leans back and smiles.

A sound of ancient import, with the ring
of honest labor, sings of fashioning.

Published by The Chariton Review, The Eclectic Muse, Trinacria, Poetry Life & Times, and  Famous Poets and Poems

NOTE: This is a sonnet about forging sonnets. The gray "anvil" is the human brain. The fiery "glow" is the poetic imagination. The cooling and shaping are the process of revision. The hammer is the poet's pen, producing order out of chaos. Keywords/Tags: Sonnet, poem, indestructible, irreducible, hammer, anvil, forge, labor, fashioning, shape, smithy, blacksmith, ironworker, sword, pen

The birthplace of weapons.
The backbone of wars.
No sound but the throes of steel.
In fires that burn, unending.

Shaped by the beating of the blacksmith.
Each stroke, manifesting his will.
To forge the weapon of prophecy;
The sword to lead us to victory.
Bathed in the blood of its enemies.

My pain, my oath
The life I define as a growth
To battle heart with yours
Is to sink and pour
A feeling, melded in meaning
Struggle to see and believe
The life of yours I perceive
To be other than my own
Is a hollow stretch I have sown
Itch of the blacksmith to earn it as whole
To forge a love in nothing but coal
Burn it in my furnace
And power my machines
Knowing your fire is nothing but mean

The cold of hard iron
You build the spire of which I admire
A cold influx of emotion
And a career where you found devotion
Chill the metal and make yourself periodic
And I will craft you into something more sporadic
A metal meant for war
Passion of the sheathe you wore
To do nothing but settle a score
Of who's love bore
The scandalous prize of more
Or more.

My life is in iron
Forged in the heart of the pyre
I am the one who builds this nightmare
The weapons that do nothing but fare as a weaponized liar
A battle I perpetuate
And a soul I can not consulate
But to make up for with a payment
I will ignore you persistent ailment
And follow my own path
As the blacksmith, ignorant of your goals
Fought under oath it do help the sociopath
But rather show the animosity of it's written scrolls

The dust will gather on beaten forge
which crafted hardened steel.
Even hardest blade it gorged,
but all forget the Blacksmith.

Rooted deep in township’s yore
with a trade of kings and conquest.
Upon him once relied your lore,
but all forget the Blacksmith.

Leathered hands, up night and day
with visage of steel and focus.
Sparks will reign and fly and spray,
but all forget the Blacksmith.

But when your steed wears down his hooves
or your gate-posts starts to splinter,
you’ll be found needing hardened grooves;
you won’t forget the Blacksmith.

For it is he who works all day
And keep the townsfolk working.
If you need hardship kept at bay,
Don’t forget the Blacksmith.