day eighteen: i am thankful for....

my hands.

i love this poem that i found, writtten by bruce alan humphrey.

Hands

Hands live to caress and love.
Hands live to fight and die.
Forever living hands, forever exploring are hands.

Remarkable hands, storied hands.
Hands, hands can build.
Hands can mold, shape, and speak.
Hands can grasp for the heavens, touch it and believe in the make believers.

Through the fingers thoughts explode as pen touches paper.
Tones and melodies erupt from inner emotions becoming reality.
Heart and soul become one as fingers scrawl quickly, feverishly.
Pounding blood surges through the fingers forcing the pen onward, causing tears to fall from an eye.

Truth flows from the mind; the hand transports it into being.
Embracers of the brush, digits move carefully following intricate lines drawn on canvas.
Colors blend together, vibrant, beautiful, soaring to mosaics of sky and water.
The calming sense of touch slows the scene until order graces the fabric.

Forgotten til’ their lost.
Forgotten until they are crippled, hands are taken for granted for their life giving talent.
Bent and crooked they are silenced from the song they once sang.
Memories now distant are relegated to the wall or museums.
Dusty shelves house the books of the once pulsating, vital, movements that the hand generated.

Hands have saved lives and taken them just as easily.
They create the saviors of life as well as the purveyors of death.
Creating and destroying with a single move a finger can move mountains or search the unknown heavens.

Hands live to caress and love.
Hands live to fight and die.
Forever living hands, forever exploring are hands.

i am thankful for my hands. i was going to list all the reasons that i love my hands...but i think this poem did it better than i ever could. without my hands, how would i paint? or draw? or write? or play the piano? how would i type, work, drive, pick things up, wash my hair, make food, put on my clothes? how would i hold my sweet baby, and feel her soft skin? how would a throw a ball with my son, wipe away his tears, hold him to my heart? how would i feel my husband's fingers entwined with mine as we sit together, walk together, lay together? how would i run my hands through his hair, touch his face? my hands allow me to live my life as i know it. without functioning hands i don't know what i would do. i am grateful for them, grateful for everything i can do because of them.