Veins bulge upwards out of your rugged hands, criss-crossed with lines, <br />Pumping hardworking blood around your body, <br />Your blood, my blood, <br /> <br />Those rugged hands strike out about their work, <br />With a single minded focus, <br />Each cell concentrated on a task. <br /> <br />Knife digs hard into feathery wood, <br />Gouging out a sliver of light ash <br />That floats to the ground like a discarded petal off a blood red rose. <br /> <br />The knife and stick sit still in your hands like gun and bullet, <br />Like tree and leaf, <br />One useless without the other to balance it. <br /> <br />Snick, snick, the metal cuts against the grain, <br />Stripping wood from living flesh, <br />Pulling away leaves of a plant to find the heart. <br /> <br />Palms moulding wood to a desired form, <br />slowly teasing it out, <br />pulling it into a desired shape. <br /> <br />I watch and envy your careful movements. <br />Frozen like stone quickly carving away at the wood, <br />I envy the way your hands move, with careful decision. <br /> <br />My muted, clumsy fists can only strike blank against the skin of the bough, <br />Scoring inaccurate wounds into its fragile flesh, <br />Making clumsy cuts into the bark, ripping out open wounds. <br /> <br />Maybe in time I’ll find that place where I can sit still and carve, <br />But till then I sit and watch you work, carving the wood so that it rises up, <br />The open branch, rugged, like the back of a hand.<br /><br />sal carter<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/back-of-your-hand/
