"workshop on the hill"

After his years in the guild,
the young crafter chose a rise
just beyond the bend
where the road split
toward the plains on one side
and the high country on the other.

The hill was not grand,
but it held a view
that let him see travellers
long before they arrived,
their figures small against the horizon,
their pace telling him
what kind of work
they might need.

A stand of hardwood trees
sheltered the slope,
roots gripping the earth
with the quiet confidence
of things that have weathered
more seasons than men remember.
Behind them,
a small orchard grew —
stunted at first,
then steady,
fed by a spring
that rose from the ground
with a soft insistence
and wandered downhill
as a narrow stream.

He built his dwelling
where the trees opened
into a natural clearing,
and beside it
a workshed
with wide doors
and a bench long enough
to hold whatever task
the road might bring.

There was no signboard.
Neither emblem.
Nor call for customers.
Only the steady rhythm
of metal being shaped,
carried on the wind
to anyone passing by.

Travellers learned the place
by word alone:
the hill workshop,
the one with the orchard,
the one where the stream begins,
the one where the crafter
listens before he works.

Some came for repairs.
Some came for tools.
Some came simply
to rest under the trees
and drink from the spring
before continuing on.

And the crafter,
now no longer an apprentice,
found that the hill
taught him as much
as the guild ever had —
how to read the road,
how to read the seasons,
how to shape metal
in a place where distance
and stillness
meet.

.