Her Hands Poem by Lynn W. Petty

Have you seen her hands, gnarled and crooked with age;
Translucent skin accenting blue-black veins,
Contrasting tendon cords of white through spots
Of brown upon the backs of her old hands?

Those hands were once the strength of our household.
They fashioned us into a family core.
They bound us with the mastic of their love.
Without apparent weariness they cooked,
And cleaned, and washed, performing endless tasks.
No motion lost in their resolve, they spoke
In silent speech. Articulate, when truth
Involved; eloquent, on matters of the heart;
Convincingly, when we had misbehaved.
On rocking lap, their touch would calm my troubled sleep;
Medicinal was their caress on fevered brow.

Restive age has slowed the winging of those birdlike hands.
Now, trembling with fatigue they struggle
To maintain their height, afraid to fall, too weak to fly,
They watch the flock on wing, its passing south across
The winter's sky.
They wait.