The Tinsmith's Son

by frithar

The Tinsmith's Son

 
Sullen son of the tinsmith, Jack grabbed the tall spoon 
his father meant to melt into a battalion of toy fighters 
for a fine lord's child. Knowing his war-wounded father 
 
could give no chase, Jack fled to the river-road, chose 
stones, batted them across the water towards the fields, 
toward crows that chastened him for it. Each rock Jack 
 
named with a swear, cracking it off harder than the last. 
When he grew tired of this, he beat the spoon on a riverside 
boulder, chunking off a small bit. His mother found him 
 
at dusk, took the spoon—dimpled, dented, and pocked—turned 
for home. Jack followed, every step shuffling up dust to hide 
behind. His father, still hearth-seated, only looked at his son, 
 
at the chip missing from the spoon's bowl. Work meant money 
meant food, he explained yet again. If the lord and his lady 
were pleased with their purchase, the smith reasoned, they 
 
might also buy pots, pails, pitchers. The boy shrugged. His 
father hammered the spoon, folding it upon itself, settled it deep
in the cast iron ladle. This, he made Jack hold over flames until 
 
the spoon was gone and a glimmery silver-and-grey lake remained, 
cracked and mottled like the moon. The tinsmith poured the shimmer 
into molds, every drop used, but it wasn't enough: the twenty-fifth 
 
soldier had two knees, but one boot, only one foot. “Like you, Papa,”
Jack thought leaning on his father's only whole leg. The tinsmith presented 
the package, wrapped, to his son. Jack's punishment: to deliver it himself 
 
before nightfall, with much thanks. The boy coat-tucked the soldiers, dodged 
hooves through the maze of streets, remembering all the while that these same 
soldiers that had once been a spoon had, before that, been his own soldiers.

Based on the classic tale of The Steadfast Tin Soldier


120th Weekly Poetry Contest
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