Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

I was ten the day the world stopped.

A pallid neighbour beckoned the Master
to our classroom door. They whispered, shook heads.
Ashen master took my hand, trembling,
he gave me to the messenger
who sent me pedalling home to desolation.

Its uncle Paddy, my mother said;
he’s dead,
a blood clot to his head.

Not my uncle Paddy, I cried;
the strongest, kindest man in the parish,
the priest had said on Sunday
when thanking him
for the gates and railings he had made
                                                              for the church.

Red iron obeyed his hammer and went
to work as horseshoes, wheel-bands, gates, railings.
Broken things lived again after his hands mended them.

Murmurs in the dazed village gathered
around the house. A man, they said,
who did not know his power. The many
who could not speak, nodded. Horses and carts
stole by from the creamery on hooves and wheels
                                                                he had shod.

The black forge silent. So young, they sighed.
I cried with weeping women, lingered,
touched the hands scrubbed white of smoke; cold, hard
                                                                as iron.

Why? Our question refrained; the high sun shone
still, for there was no answer, only mine;
that there was not one blacksmith among
the Apostles and maybe they needed
the best one in the world to make new gates
                                                               for Heaven.