A Book Folded Silently In Prayer Poem by Peitho Enthermos

The contours drawn into a story,
Delineated by the grimaces of pains from a fist,
Engraved by the years of adversity,
Was what I understand the least.

Written there between his closed wrinkled palms,
Hidden there in his closed weary hands;
He kept it there, the toils he endured for me,
The tears he wept, and the misery.

But there came one day,
And I heard him say,
'God please say to me,
I can keep him as my baby.'

All this, I thought I already knew,
Why he always clasp it together.
I thought I knew what was inside them,
Inside a book folded silently in prayer.