All I know is a door into the dark.
I am struck by this opening line from
Seamus Heaney’s poem, “The Forge.” The image
resonates with something deep within me.
A door, a threshold, an entrance to a new place, yet a place without
comforting orientation, a door-way which does not lead to the foreseeable but
into darkness, the realm of something unknown, full of risk, threat, insecurity
and potential revealing moments. I am drawn to this image of the darkened
doorway even as I feel ambivalent toward it.
It evokes the lure of something primal, something truthful emerging in
the dark places of my life, a collision of mystery and meaning. It suggests the possibility of something
important to gain or lose, of walking into an unsafe and unsure place, which
may be costly, and yet, also somehow worth the step. Here is the poem in full:
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
square,
Set there immovable: 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 a flick
To beat real iron out, to work the
bellows.
The door into the dark leads to the
workshop of the “forge” or “smithy” (or blacksmith, more popularly), one of the
oldest processes for shaping metal. Some
think Heaney is using this extended reflection on the forge to evoke something
of the writer’s creative craft, perhaps even his own. For me, this poem suggests something about
the search for creative authenticity in each person, perhaps even my own.
“Outside,” where the history of what
has been made and done and lived lies on the ground in the form of “old axles
and iron hoops rusting,” forms of things which have outlived their usefulness
are scattered around. They once served
life well, but now take up extra room and await the destiny of metal scraps—to be
lost forever or broken down and re-formed for a new purpose. “Inside,” one hears the “short-pitched ring”
of hammer on anvil as the forge pounds out new shapes. It is hard work, breaking down hardened edges
“to beat real iron out,” working with powerful forces of heat and compression,
setting new forms in place “when a new shoe toughens in water.” It would be easy to get burned, and the “unpredictable
fantail of sparks” is a fiery reminder that consequences from this effort are
not easily foreseen.
In an important way, one must own
this “inside” work, not worried foremost about the perceptions of others. The forge, “leather-aproned, hairs in nose,”
has a kind of toughness for the necessary work and a rough disdain for the games
of refined expectation and societal posture.
He takes a break at one point, “leans out on the jamb” to notice the
larger society “where traffic is flashing in rows,” then “grunts and goes in”
where he continues the important work of his life.
Not seen from the outside, the anvil
resides in the dark and “must be somewhere in the centre.” It is both central and “immovable” in the
creative work that takes place. There is
a firm face to the anvil on which the forge depends in order to get through
hard work. Here, at the very creative
center, the anvil is “at one end square,” with logical right angles and the
reasoning of geometry. Yet the other
side is “horned as a unicorn,” evoking that mythical beast of history which
points to magic, inner purity, and the sacred.
The anvil, by it very shape, brings together logic and magic, reason and
the sacred. It is “an altar,” a place of
creative encounter and change, where the forge “expends himself in shape and
music.” Here is the transformative space
at the heart of authentic creation. To
get there, one must enter a “door into the dark.”
