The hands are churches that worship the world.
—Naomi Shihab Nye, “Daily”
To pour water over the aloe,
the cyclamen, the jade plant, the cactus,
this, too, is prayer. Prayer in touching
my own dry lips, marveling at the fullness
beneath fingertips. Worship in hefting
the tea pot by its thick black handle.
Worship in squeezing the sudsy warm sponge.
Just yesterday, while we were driving,
Art said to me, “Why not open to the marvelous?”
I equated marvelous with the grand, the inexplicable,
even the strange. It didn’t occur to me then
that gripping the smooth, leather arc of steering wheel
is marvelous, cradling the white paper cup full of coffee
is marvelous, fingering the waffle pattern on the dishcloth
as I fold it is marvelous. Marvelous, flipping through
skin-thin pages of notebooks. Marvelous
and sacred, my palm resting on my husband’s thigh.
Marvelous, these knobby knuckles, how they
curl around the hair brush. Sacred,
the pillowed pads of these fingers, how they
trace the lines of my husband’s face,
how they twist and tug wool around the knitting
needles, how they tap at the keyboard to fashion
language out of feeling, how they rest above my heart
and translate into praise that beat, faithful and familiar.
Posts Tagged ‘hands’
Manual
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chore, daily, habit, hands, sacred, worship on March 18, 2026| 5 Comments »
Practice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, bindweed, garden, hands, practice, touch, weeding on June 20, 2024| 2 Comments »
I plunge my hands into the soil
and tug on the long white bindweed roots
that cling to the cool damp dark.
Never once have I pulled the whole plant.
Always, the bindweed comes back.
Once I might have longed for a weed-free
world. How did I not see the bindweed
for what it is—a chance to touch
again and again what humbles me, and
to learn with my hands the art of acceptance
so my hands might teach my heart.
One Caress
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, beauty, hands, love, touch on June 8, 2024| 4 Comments »
touching you
even these old scarred hands
become wings
In Hand
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hands, love, marriage on May 9, 2024| 12 Comments »
Each night before dinner
I slide my hand, palm up,
across the table toward yours,
and always, you rest your hand on mine,
the way a petal might land on a leaf,
the way a leaf might land on grass.
So gentle your hand
that is equally at home in my hand
as it is in the engine of an old Toyota truck
or tightening a valve on the irrigation pump,
wielding a chainsaw or dripping hot wax
onto a ski before scraping it off.
So many ways I don’t know your hands—
how they fidgeted when you were a child,
how they fumbled when you first tied a shoe,
what they clutched when you felt alone.
But now, they are nearly as familiar to me
as my own hands—how your hands
flutter up to press to your lips,
how they cup each other to create
a small cave you breathe into when thinking,
how they pull through my hair
when I lay my head in your lap,
how they help me to know my own shape,
how one hand of yours will rest
against one hand of mine
to tether us even in sleep.
While I Could
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hands, holding, transience on November 5, 2021| 8 Comments »
We arrive empty handed, and leave empty handed. So then, how do we want to spend the time in between?
—Nimo, Empty Hands Music
For a time, I held
him. Before he
could walk, before
he could stand,
before he could
speak, I held
his full weight
in my hands.
Day became night
became day became
night became day
and I held him
and rocked him
and soothed him
and bathed him
and cradled
his beautiful face.
It didn’t last.
It never lasts.
But before he could run,
before he could
fall, before
he could choose
what I never
would have chosen for him,
I held him.
Oh, this gift,
to know the heft
of his life, to have been
the one—though
never again—
to have been the one
for a time, sweet time,
to hold him.
Drinking Assam Tea
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hands, labor, poem, poetry, tea on November 20, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Malty, bright and voluptuous,
the tea meets me this morning,
and though I’m alone, the kitchen
is filled with other hands—the
potter’s, for instance, that threw
and trimmed and pulled and glazed
this favorite mug into mugness.
And the hands of the harvesters
in India who gathered the fresh green leaves
of the second flush, then
spread them on a tray and left them
to dry in the sun. And who rolled the leaves?
And who gathered them after they aged?
I wrap both hands around the mug
and inhale the musky scent of tea
and marvel at how much humanity
went into this simple cup. I stare
at my knuckles, my fingers, my palms.
It’s your turn, I tell them.
Serve the world well. Can you make something
so bold, so strong?
While Drying Apples for Hours, I Consider
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apple, hands, love, poem, poetry, touch on October 15, 2019| 4 Comments »
It’s something the hands learn
with practice—how thin to slice
the apples for drying, how close
to cut to the core. In the same way
the hands learn to touch a lover,
how gently, how firmly, just where.
Oh the apple. What it knows
of desire. What it knows
of bruising, of bite. Oh the hands,
what they know of precision.
Of the pleasure of practice.
Of the joy in getting it right.
What Hands Can Do
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Bosnia, greeting, hands, poem, poetry, strangers, taxi on November 20, 2018| 2 Comments »
In my country, he said, we take strangers
by the hand when we greet them.
His taxi wove through the northbound cars
on Lakeshore Drive, and I watched his eyes
in the rearview mirror as they searched
the lanes for where to go. It’s strange,
perhaps, he said, to offer someone
your bare hand, but it’s a nice gesture,
I think. In the world beyond the car,
how many strangers did we pass
in one minute? How many chances
to reach toward another and say
Hello, or as they say in Bosnia,
Zdravo? How many chances
to open some small part of ourselves
and trust the other to do the same?
I wanted to disagree with the man.
I wanted to tell him, that’s what
we do in this country, too. But
clearly his experience told him otherwise.
Here, he said, people shake at the end
of a conversation to make a deal.
But not at the beginning. At least
not with strangers.
I want to start a revolution. I want
our country shake hands more.
I want us to extend ourselves
toward those we don’t know,
to offer them something of ourselves,
to be vulnerable, welcoming, kind.
When I got out of the car, I thanked the man
in his tongue, as he’d taught me, Hvala.
I paid with the credit card in the back.
I didn’t reach forward to seal the deal.
I stepped out grateful for what he gave me—
one more way to revere creation,
one more way to honor what hands can do.
Right There on Main Street
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Clea Willow, hands, heart, love, parking meter, poem, poetry on March 28, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Imagine that your hands are an extension of your heart. Because they are.
—Clea Willow, yoga instructor
While slipping coins into the meter
I remind my hands they are doing
the work of the heart. They fumble
to find another quarter in my coin purse,
then drop it on the sidewalk
where it shines against the gray.
Isn’t that just like the heart, I think,
to bumble even the simplest of routines.
It could be so easy to search for, hold closely,
and let go at just the right time.
Come on hands, I tell them, do what
what the heart must do. Reach.
Recover. Try again.
Sole
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hands, letting go, love, poem, poetry on February 26, 2017| 1 Comment »
Like a boot takes the shape
of the foot that wears it, I imagine
my hand might come to take the shape
of yours, your hand—something
I was made to hold, made to move with,
made to let go.