Welder

My hood’s lens darkens, a molten weld pool
boiling up in this portable green night
where I can feel, sometimes, beautifully alone.
The constant buzz and sputter of the arc
fills my head like a hard rain coming down,
and with the right stick and amperage,
a steady path of light begins to form.
Keep the arc gap tight, the angle steady,
and you‘re already headed home. No sweat.
My son, back from college, says welding
is alchemy (a new word for me), metal
grafted onto metal, not a living thing
but like a living thing, a new form given 
to the world—not your world but the one
where I have a place, a craft, a trade, a self.
Handing me my hood as I leave for work,
he says, You’re medieval, a warrior, a knight
of the industrial order. As a boy,
he would follow me on jobs, chipping slag,
the hard crust welding always leaves behind.
I work alone now. Work is who I am,
traveling day and night to oil rigs
and project sites in No Man’s Land, sleeping
in my truck, rising to the task at hand.
Last night it rained, lulling me into a sort
of shallow sleep, odd bits of memory
and dream floating up: the radio’s blue glow,
moon among the branches over Early Creek,
red streaks of tracer bullets on Saipan,
the jukebox of that honky-tonk in Meade
where my son recited from the last will
and testament of the poet named Villon,
and always, the rod’s hypnotic whip and stitch
as I run an even bead with worn-out eyes.
It’s not poetry. But it’s what I do.
It’s what I have to pass along in case
his poet’s life proves not as lucrative
as he might like: my box of tools kept oiled
and free from rust, my steel-toed boots and fine
bronze cutting torch, a welding unit good 
as new, and a pickup truck with a bed
where he can sleep, dream, ease the pains of work,
and rise again to make a life. A life.