The Forge (An Ode to Blacksmiths) #5

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,
Horned as a unicorn, at one end and square,
Set there immoveable: an altar
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 is flashing in rows;
Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and flick
To beat real iron out, to work the bellows

This poem frustrated me so much. I had such a hard time trying to find deeper meaning in this poem and I was so close to losing my mind. During the beginning, I was just thinking that the author was just going down this wrong path or something when in reality, this was about a blacksmith. Okay, I had to look this up, but I had no idea that a Forge was another word for blacksmith, so that was really dumb on my part. (I had to look that up) After that clarification (thanks to the interwebs again), the poem made more sense to me when I read it for the second time. The vibe I got from this poem is that the author is in a state of admiration towards this blacksmith and is going into great lengths of detail to talk about his work and craftsmanship. Basically this is an ode to blacksmiths, the overlooked job that no one really stops to think about in the grand scheme of things. So this poem wouldn't be consider on my list of good poems I've read, but it's interesting to see something write something pretty sweet for people in this profession. The thing that worked well in this poem was the imagery, when the author talks about rusting iron, his apron, and his nose hairs for some creepy/odd reason. But I was able to see how this blacksmith looked like in my head, and him working, and that's what the author wanted.