The Wordsmith

I will be a wordsmith, crafting carefully, creating the tool or the weapon best suited to the purpose at hand. I will beat, break, burn lifeless lumps of everyday ugliness into things of dazzling, deathless beauty. By dark and potent alchemies I will transform leaden sorrow into golden greatness. With iron grasp I will mold the chaos, bend it, force it to take shape on the anvil of what is Real. In furnace-hot pain and desire I will forge strong words, and temper them with cool contemplation. Scalpel-sharp I will grind them against the rough edges of truth, and they will sever diseased falsehoods.
I will be a wordsmith, and I will be careful, careful with the weapon-words! Sometimes no scalpel will make things right, sometimes only a sword will do. But once weapons are made, they can be taken and wielded by fools, madmen, those who LIKE using weapons. Follow the rivers of ink spilled by men of ideas, and they always lead to the oceans of blood spilled by men of action.
I will be a wordsmith, and I will sometimes grow weary of hammering halberds and sharpening swords. I will sometimes work not in steel but in silver, showing forth the holiness of beauty with intricately interwoven tendrils of living words, the very breath of the Creator. I will make worlds, wake desire, partake in His delight, create simply because such things ought to BE.
I will be a wordsmith, and I will have power; because humanity makes the world what it is, but words make humanity what it is. I will use the power responsibly; for the words are a sacred trust, the crafting a deep magic which makes the world anew in the image of the smith.
When I am a wordsmith, I will be a god, singing new things into being.
When I am a wordsmith, I will be an animal, howling the things that have been too deep to say.
When I am a wordsmith, I will be a flame, flowing fierce and free, turning base matter into pure light.
When I am a wordsmith, I will be all these things;
For when I am a wordsmith, I will be a man.

© John M. Munzer