The Sword

(Found here)

I made the sword.
Here in the fire I plunged the steel
white hot bearing the beat of the apprentice’s
hammers, one-two-three over and over
on the steel bar -- over and over the firing
the beating of hammers till the bar is dense
with the struggle, and I bend it again and again.
Over and over the pounding, the cutting, the bending,
layer on layer the crude bar resists me.

I have given it courage. It has held day and night
against heat, against pounding. At last I have shaped it,
hardened its edges.
It becomes a mirror of my hand hardened in fire

with the metal that resists and is beaten
folded and beaten to the luster
of the still pond that is windless
that carries one gold curving branch in its center
spread with the gold leaves of springtime
and waiting
to bring you this mirror, this hardness, this ardor of hammering home.

~Ann Stanford


“[This] poem by the twentieth-century California poet depicts the making of a sword—a striking image that stands in tension with what Jesus consistently reveals about the nature of God’s kingdom. Throughout his three years of teaching and embodied ministry, Jesus refuses to locate the advance of the kingdom in human violence or coercive power. Instead, he exposes a deeper order at work in the world, one governed by love, mercy, and faithful obedience to the Father. This is most fully revealed at the cross, where Jesus does not summon violent retribution against those who betray, abandon, and crucify him, but entrusts himself to the justice of God while praying for their forgiveness. In doing so, he redefines strength and victory, calling his followers not to abandon judgment altogether, but to relinquish vengeance and learn to love even their enemies as witnesses to a kingdom not built by the sword.”

~Dianne Collard