All I know is a door into the dark
Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting;
Inside, the hammered anvil's short-pitched ring,
The unpredictable fantail of sparks
Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water,
The anvil must be somewhere in the centre,
Set there immoveable: an alter
Where he expends himself in shape and music,
Sometimes, leather-aproned, hairs in his nose,
He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter
Of hoofs where traffic flashing in rows;
Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and flick
To beat real iron out, to work the bellows