My Father’s Hands

This poem was orginally posed in February.  It is posted again for Father’s Day.

 

I looked down when I awoke

and saw I had my father’s hands.

 

Last night,

my own had slipped comfortably into my gloves.

Would these?

For years I thought I could not fill his shoes.

 

These hands I now possess are so familiar. 

When I was young

I’d watch them try to mold my being –

shape the changing silhouette

which would one day

a shadow cast upon  the world.

 

A constant presence  –

from the time I saw them pick me up -

comfort me – dust me off –

point me in the right direction –

and push me on my bicycle ride to manhood.

 

Powerful, I observed them work and grip –

hew the measure of the wood

tighten, screw, and lift –

meet and master every challenge.

 

At the table of our sustenance, reassuring.

Clenched in an evening prayer of thanks - 

and of anxiety I did not see.

Derisively I wondered

why he could not clean below his fingertips.

 

Occasionally he crafted

a brief note with a #2 lead pencil.

Though his hands spoke more meaningfully in other ways –

always in control.

 

Now as he fumbled

with the buttons of his pajama top,

 

I used these gifts of inheritance

to thread the unfastened loopholes –

and gently gripped the trembling hands which parented me

to pull him up from his recliner.

 

He did not want to let go –

 

a feeling I remember from my youth.

 

Ray Brown

 

For another Father’s Day poem read: “Father of the Day”