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| Henry Moore |
A Hand
A hand is not four fingers and a thumb.
Nor is it palm and knuckles,
not ligaments or the fat’s yellow pillow,
not tendons, star of the wristbone, meander of veins.
A hand is not the thick thatch of its lines
with their infinite dramas,
nor what it has written,
not on the page,
not on the ecstatic body.
Nor is the hand its meadows of holding, of shaping—
not sponge of rising yeast-bread,
not rotor pin’s smoothness,
not ink.
The maple’s green hands do not cup
the proliferant rain.
What empties itself falls into the place that is open.
A hand turned upward holds only a single, transparent question.
Unanswerable, humming like bees, it rises, swarms, departs.
Jane Hirshfield
The thing about poetry that keeps pulling me back in must be that need to look beyond the surface. It isn't just the thing, it's what it signifies, it's the levels of meaning within and around it. This poem is a perfect example of that.
Puts me in mind of how, sometimes purposefully and other times unconsciously, I study the hands of those I love, there is such beauty in the hands of those dear ones. Three beautiful hands twined together aslo comes to mind.
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