"Every year for decades, around this time of year I quietly look back on life's meanderings.   This year is especially reflective, it's getting harder to see coal to forge and the hand fails to strike word without trembling reminder the sands of time were not part of the immortal bargain."   "...For that I am sorry."   "The blacksmith and the artist, Reflect it in their art, They forge their creativity Closer to the heart."           "So many things I would tell you, so many things I cannot; one day the forge fires will fade, hand no longer to brush- touch the things I have made and remember my voice, know where my heart came and where it stayed. My peasant hands brought from me the words I cannot always say in what you see, and my touch in what you hold."                                                                                       ...

Dawn breaks with knowing for the first time in my life, the possibility of never- the small hope that I have wanes with each day, how long before that is even enough to sway gentle breeze to touch brow and lift down cast eye.   Shoulders tremble because the weight they bear that at one time seemed effortless now calls to see knee bent and palm to ground. Song in heart seems distant and wave breaks on a shore I'm bound to rest.   One day I hope to hear it call my name and bring me home once again. Until then, I set to its water my small light carrying heart as beacon so that she knows the way. I can do nothing more and hope that in time the ground on which I lay etches memory of my presence once carried and reads: "I was always here and...

You know, you'd figure people would have a general idea its not a good thing to get in the way of a man and his family. Men. Government. Gods.   You're never going to be safe, and defeat comes on silent, swift wings when you least expect it as patience being taught first order to a young hunter. Best advice I can give anybody...   A threat? No. A simple consequence. Lesser men die for far less than noble reasons. "There is no greater victory than to fall from this world a free man." -and a free man chooses his own causes. Honor is lost on those of no worth and very few things hold more dear to heart than the bonds of love and pride in that, challenging these cannot go without facing that consequence. Ever.   You simply are not in a world where you can expect weak...