The Start
By Reid Baer

The handle feels easy in his
father’s palm and the steel head has
a certain raw potency of
its own ready for the anvil
and the flattening of the iron
in his son John … so with a jerk
and sudden movement down and a
rebound upward the great hammer
bounces a beat or two then comes
to rest at center mass in the
creation, manipulation,
of another generation’s
soul – this is the boy’s sudden start -
startling from the beginning to
the end never apart from the
early formation forever
reverberating through parts of
this man’s mind and surely his heart.
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