My Father's Hands

March 3, 2010

Look!
 Don’t cover up your faces!
See my father’s hands.
Yes, they are filled with deformities now.
drawn up in the form
of a lion’s paw.
What a story these hands could tell you
which formed my family’s world.
With praying hands
strong provider hands
tying my shoe lace when I did not know how
helping hand for algebra homework
and making chicken gumbo
carpenter hands holding a hammer,
rhythmically and melodiously nailing, fixing things
yet like a protective lion, tenderly brushing away my pain from my childhood
woundings.
Hands fixing bandage on a scraped knee as I learned
to ride my bicycle, “The Green Hornet.”
These hands painted walls in strokes of ease.
and drywalled houses
Dad could cement bricks together like icing a cake.
Hands which measured walls with a look.
These hands worked long hard hours until midnight.
Hands of excellence
so don’t you cover up your face or look away!
Like the nails in my Jesus’ hands,
see my father’s hands!