A Pocket of Resistance: Selected Poems

Hands When most folks meet him, they notice steel blue eyes and agility; his gaze, gait and movements belie the ninety-five years; but those folks should look at his hands: Durer, if he saw them, would want to paint them. His hands are marked from tire irons, jacks, wrenches, sledges, micrometers on carburetors, axles, brake drums, distributors, starting in ’34 at twelve dollars a week. He has used those hands to repair the cars and our hearts; His hands pitched tents, made the bulldozers run in war in the steaming, screaming sweat of Bougainville, New Guinea, the Philippines. His hands have nicks and scratches turned into scars with the passage of time: a map of history, the human kind. Veins and arteries stand out on the back of his hands, pumping life; tales are etched from grease and oil and grime, cleansed with gasoline and goop and lava soap; They are hands of labor, hands of hard times, hands of hope, hands of kindness, caring. His hands own wisdom, passing it to those who know him with a pat, a caress, a handshake. His hands tell the story so well.