HANDS

We are what our hands can do.

The silent voice of hands, like the dance of the

language of Sign, speaks more than words can say.

In tomorrow's Museum of Hands one could view them all:

A Hindu hand reserved only for eating, not-me hands of solitary

self-pleasure where fantasy reigns, probing nose-picking paws,

hot hands of the petty thief and the nail-bitten clammy

cold hands of those plagued by vexation.

In the Hall of Honor would be displayed the compassionate

hands of volunteers who massage the feet of hospice patients.

The delicate well trained hands that wrestled with a

quadruple by-pass all morning, hold a bone china

cup of English tea in the afternoon.

A pianist, whose gifted fingers ran an eight hour marathon

over the ivories practicing for a concert, unwinds by

dipping his hands in ice water, wondering what its all

about while listening to Segovia's Bach cantata.

A carpenter, whose sinewy, callused hands gripped a hammer,

driving nails straight into two by fours, framing a

house, downs a Budweiser as the setting

sun casts shadows between the rafters.

A blind mechanic who has learned to re-build

transmissions, breaks for lunch and happily chats

with his girlfriend on his braille cell phone.

What did Michaelangelo's hands look like?

The hands of evil, hands of murderers, child molesters, and greedy

crooks of every kind, hands of cockroaches with human faces.

The Heil Hitler salute,

the hand that signaled the bombs to be dropped at Hiroshima

and Nagasaki or gave the order to bomb Pearl Harbor and

the hand of OSB in the 9/11 attack.

Ordinary hands that do mundane jobs, a yawning bus

driver steering you home after work, a barber, who

patiently snips and combs away long afternoons,

stubby fingers of the German butcher, who trims

the fat off your prime rib, the battered and bruised

fists of the fighter, hoping to go another round, a

fisherman returning to port followed by a flock of

screeching seagulls, hands covered in fish scales and

sea weed, an elderly supplicant sitting in church having

recited her prayers, sits with folded hands and waits.

Milton P. Ehrlich