Meteor Showers

 

“What, craftsman, are you preparing there?

What, blacksmith, are you making?”            —Runo 49, The Kalevala*

 

The sparks from my

father’s welding rods

threw showers
of stars onto the concrete

floor of his shop in the back yard.

He had on a welder’s hood.

He stopped the weld,

tossed the hood back.

“Don’t look at the white

quivering light. Look

aside or you’ll go blind.”

He had a side business.

His union job was

in the Brownstone Shops

of CCI—

Cleveland Cliffs Iron.

 

Evenings he wrought

iron, twisting fences,

rails, and gates,

designing and forging

stainless steel,

sauna stoves, water tanks

for camps and homes.

I have tried to see a
meteor shower in the night sky

but have not.

I have seen the aurora borealis

but the only meteor showers

I have seen were those

made by my father’s steel

rods spraying orange,

yellow, red on a cold

winter’s night after supper.

My mythic fire-maker
was not in a far off Olympus.

He was welding

with acetylene in the back yard.

Daddy, my Hephaestus.