Hands
The smell of fresh-cut grass permeates the air of the lawns
That father has just mowed
He now meticulously peels the dead leaves
Off of the pink dogwood
Still very skillful, still very gentle
For an aging man, who’s spent all his life hard laboring with his hands
Dry dead skin peels off at spots
Some blisters have hardened and aged with time
Become dead-thick moles
In the palms, on the fingers
Are the scars of distant and recent pasts
The big old one
He got from a backfire of an M16
Fighting in the battle of Da Tho
Where the communists were fearfully suppressed
There are some larger
Dead-skin moles
Plowing soil, chopping wood, planting and padding
In prison camp
Since April of nineteen seventy five
These spots even thickened and blackened more and more
From pushing his plane
From sanding wood
From dawn till dusk
As a carpenter
After his release
The same hands used to pick me up
When he was home from leaves
To patch me up
At times I hurt myself in games of babies
Surprisingly, they were the gentlest
These hands now write beautiful poetry
And prose, and music
Nurse our baby nephews and nieces
Care our lawns to perfection to others’ envy
I look at his hands
Evidence of history
Memories and stories
Of present and past
Start rushing vividly through my mind
Written for my father, to whom, I owe the deepest gratitude and reserve greatest appreciation.
05/29/03
