The Age of Iron

Silence is golden. Gold peals where you walk,
intuited and whole, in silent clamour.
It slips beside its own: no need for talk,
no weighing down with words. Mere joy and glamour.

Not so with us. This river’s dammed with rock,
and damned with talk, pleading aloud for grammar.
The age of iron follows gold. It’s blocks
and grooves with us. Not sapphire, but the hammer.

We are cast out. Yet iron serves us well.
We cast this iron as a citadel
that shields us, perched, as we discourse the spheres.

We cast this iron into files and gauges
with which we tame our gold, to last the ages.
This too is grace, which clamps; yet also steers.