My Grandfather’s Hands

My hands are no longer young.
The skin is aged, sun browned,
a bit wrinkled, with spots.
There are scars,

visible memories
of the wounds that plague and grace a life.
They are strong, firm still,

capable,
my grandfather’s hands,
the hands I remember as a boy,

gazing at with amazement ,
covered with dust from the fields,
holding the wheel

of his pickup,
that behemoth of the fifties
all fenders and steel,

a magic chariot with faded red paint,
and he, the magician
able to fix tractors

and a teenage boy’s soul
with equal grace.
And now, you look down

and see the same skin
covering your soul
and wonder if he felt his wisdom

or, like you,
made it up
as he went along?

About this poem

The hands in the picture are my sons, a few years ago. My hands, alas, are beginning to look like my father’s and his father’s before him.

Tom