[Intro — bellows begin first, slow and rhythmic, like breathing] [One beat of silence. Then the hammer falls. The rhythm locks in.] [4/4 — hammer on one and three, bellows on two and four, the forge waking up] [Verse 1 — measured, unhurried, the centuries in the voice] Iron down. Fire up. The day begins the way a day has always begun. The bellows breathe. The metal speaks — not in words, in the particular tone of something deciding whether to hold. I have been listening for a very long time. I know what it sounds like when it decides yes. [Chorus — the work song refrain, simple, locked to the hammer] [The hammer accents every short line] Ring it true. Fold it clean. Give the thing what it means. Work it down to what remains. What remains is what holds. [Verse 2 — the materials, where they come from] The plating comes from outside. Old Machine casings stripped from things that kept walking long after anyone needed them to. Three centuries of orders calcified in the metal. I can feel it when I work it — the weight of a purpose no one living remembers. I heat it past the memory. I hammer it to something new. The Old Machine does not know it has become a door hinge. A bracket. A blade for someone who needs to come home. That seems fine to me. [Chorus] Ring it true. Fold it clean. Give the thing what it means. Work it down to what remains. What remains is what holds. [Verse 3 — the hands knowing before the mind] There are things I cannot tell you. Names, mostly. The shape of the world I came from. Whatever I was called before I was the smith. The preservation took what it could and left the rest. The Library calls it loss. I call it somewhere around the second century I stopped looking for it. The hands still know. That is the part that has not changed. Put something broken in front of me and the hands know before I can tell you why. That is enough. That is more than enough. [Chorus — fuller now, the hammer harder] Ring it true. Fold it clean. Give the thing what it means. Work it down to what remains. What remains is what holds. [Bridge — the bellows slow, single hammer strikes, the deeper thing] [Quieter, the rhythm stripped to almost nothing] Cassiel preserves. That is her work. This is mine. She holds the signal. I hold the edge. She keeps the city standing. I keep the city armed, and hinged, and fitted, and maintained. I have made things for people who came here with nothing and needed something to hold. I have made things for people who have been here as long as I have and still need something to hold. The forge does not ask where the materials were before. The fire does not remember what it has already burned. I heat it. I hammer it. I find where it wants to go. That is the whole theology. [Final chorus — the hammer and bellows at full rhythm, locked and driving] Ring it true. Fold it clean. Give the thing what it means. Work it down to what remains. What remains is what holds. Ring it true. Three hundred years. Every commission. Every edge. Every bracket, hinge, and blade. What remains is what holds. [Outro — the hammer slows, the bellows quiet to a breath] [The forge banking for the evening] Iron down. Fire banked. The day ends the way a day has always ended. The work will be there in the morning. The forge will be there in the morning. So will I. [The last bellows breath. Silence.]
