Humans have always adorned the tools of murder and slaughter:
See the inlay on the steel, the ripples like wind upon water?
See the chasing and etching, pearl and the glow of topazes?
See all the curves and the facets, tiger-eye catching the gazes?
Look: shade matched to shade with taste and with careful intention,
So that a corpse, cut asunder, looks like an artful invention.
Who was inspired to craft the guards and the bevels made fair?
Blood vanishes in an instant — Damascus patterns stay there.

…My hand cramps tight with fatigue, yet I begin once more:
I turn again to my labor — a craftsman of beautiful words.