Those Disciples Who Have Forgotten How To Pray Poem by Robert Rorabeck

My hand: like a river that winnows,
Swaying in banks of light, mountainous
Knuckles when gripped Titans awakening,
When asleep punished by teenage gods,
A creative tool, an injunction,
A lift for trees and patter of wheat.
My hand has not been in Michigan for decades,
Not since my aunt’s wedding,
But that is where it curled from mother’s womb,
Like a yawning doll,
Conceived in the drooling mists of Appalachia;
My hand in the shadows, without scars,
Long curled fingers warp outward, my hand
The ledger, an instrument of bones and wine,
The typing instrument, thrilled to a drunken brain,
A face sometimes mustached who hasn’t kissed
A woman’s lips in years, a spider my hand
Conjoined. I think it odd that a male’s hand
Should resemble a female’s, or that the different
In sexes is only apparent erogenous,
A hand that should cup an infant, hosanna,
A hand that should cusp waves as if breasts,
And pay for the dinner outstretched,
A hand which pulled her hair and held her
Neck, who shot the b.b. Gun, and gripped the stony
Lips as it scrambled over my head to summit,
To climb four mountains in one day,
The highest in Colorado: my hand, the processor
Of humanity, like any other hand digging ditches
Looking for gold, my hand on the steering wheel
My lips singing to the radio, palm spread camaraderie,
Fingers tapdance unringed,
Or in need to catch a lover’s tear or hide the
Gum under the desk, refusing to learn Latin,
My hand an expletive, and jest, or any other symbol
My nerves comprehend, clutching chains, motivate the
Arc of the frozen swing-set, light a cigarette burning
Cherries into the snow, my hand to steal, to foil,
To water-ski, or to reward the dog, to fold the book like
Manipulating a butterfly, to smack her ass, to lift the
Beer to my slurping lips; my hand who
Has forgotten how to pray, my hand who gives
Correct change, or cuts the fruit to its salty core,
My hand in death remains the worn-out instrument of
God the ants explore, who swings the weed-eater
Over the grass and touches the brail upraised in stone,
Blindly notices the cooling of temperature walking into
The shadows, my hand like many others
Working, working, moving through the ceaseless play
Weathered into spiders, who has forgotten the joyful
Avenues of women, their variables displayed on
A picnic table, and to explore with her hands as loudly
As lips, my hand with no sense of smell brings
Food to my lips, and secrets to my door,
Each finger conjoined to the other, disciples to the
Heart’s rhythm, and he the engine that irrigates each
Line and passage they should explore, and peal
Open, and devour, and reward....
Those disciples who have forgotten how to pray.