Looking at my hands –
Have always been pleased with them ~
As have some women.
Tag: Hands
#32/365
Feast of St. Brigid –
Make her cross with the wrong reeds ~
A minor penance.
#30/365
IKEA kitchen –
Slowly install it myself ~
Humming old Norse songs.
Shock
Put watch on wrong way –
Thinking of what I have lost ~
Half the evening.
Five Yoyos
Dada tooth fairy –
Travels very light these days ~
A silent payment.
Generations
Family table –
So many hands joined in Grace ~
Kids playing beneath.
Instruction
Some hands know the soil.
They know what to do with it.
They’re not fine hands, clean hands, they’re rough and thick fingered and calloused but they bring life out of the black and keep a kind of order on the land.
They give firm handshakes.
And hold grandchildren carefully like they hold a china tea cup or a fragile flower.
(For Bob, who knew the land and its people well, RIP).
Emigrant
To the Motherland for a while –
It is clear that I must visit the Sea –
Pick up the familiar clasts and cast them into the surf –
The headlands that I can trace in my sleep, as familiar as the back of my hands (changing with age, wind and sun) –
The sound of the waves, hypnotic and addictive, never easy to leave –
Easier knowing they will always be there, indeed there will always be an Ireland, long after we are all gone.
Spots
A sudden surprise –
The appearance of my hands ~
Aged and beaten.
@
Simple craft –
Functional beauty ~
Just right.
duncancleary 