Of the Wood

I sit by an open window, the cool night breeze wafting in, carrying the calls of the barred owls from the cypress swamp.  They hoot, growl, chuckle, and shout into the blackness; sending every possum and rabbit scrambling into the nearest clump of gallberry or bracken.  Pines tower around my house, steeples silhouetted against a starry night sky.  Here, we are silvaticus.  Silvaticus means: of the wood or wild.  It is the ancestor of the word savage.  It is an accurate description of our lifestyle, for we gain sustenance from the pinewood and cypress swamps that surround us. 

Even my forge is tucked away amongst the greenery of oaks, pines, and bays.  I char the bones of these trees to create the fuel for my forge: charcoal.  Their sinuous trunks and reaching limbs become the grips for my knives.  The hides of the beasts that skulk in the shadows contribute to the sheaths of these edged tools that rise from the flames like a phoenix.   The gleaming steel does truly reincarnate, since I begin with rusted scrap left to decay slowly in the woods.  You can hear the ring of my anvil echo through the wood and smell the smoke on the breeze as I coax the dead back to life, a necromancer of steel and iron.

As I sit here, late at night, listening to the crickets and watching the fire flies dance through the darkness, I ponder what tomorrow will bring forth from my forge.  What shapes will emerge from the ashes, which lines will appear as curls of wood leave my planes?  Most importantly, who do I breathe life into these knives for and what tasks in a far away wood will they perform?