With These Hands
With these hands I have already endured a hundred lifetimes and with these hands I would endure a hundred more if it meant I could use them to give some good to this world before mine time is done.
With these hands I have fought off the world. Cracked bone on bone feeling the will slowly drain from my enemies body. They have been scarred, and tempered by battle. They have even, at times, done the work of both good and evil.
With these hands I have built everything from school projects, to a home, to a rifle and with them I continue to build my legacy. They hold the roughness of demolition and the refined skills of a model maker.
With these hands I have penned countless thoughts, equations, and notes. Not always in the best of penmanship or the most proper of grammar, but at times I have opened up and allowed the deepest parts of me to speak.
With these hands I have swept away the tears of my children, the pain of my wife, and attempted to hide tears of my own. The holding of hands and the pressure of an embrace as I've attempted to take pain away.
And with these hands I have felt life slip away slowly, then finally letting go...some with grin and some with a tear. But with every soul I've felt depart this world, their memory has stayed with me.
So yes, with these hands I have lived lifetimes. It is with these hands that I now look to the future optimistically. To the many lifetimes they will still live because my hands have found purpose, they have finally defined their "Why".
3 comments
I appreciate the meaning but can I just counter with *
Now with these hands, with these hands
With these hands, with these hands
I pray, Lord
I pray for the strength, Lord
I pray for your love, Lord
I pray for the strength, Lord
I pray for your love, Lord
I pray for the faith, Lord
I pray for the strength, Lord
I pray for the journey, Lord
I pray for Peace, Lord
I pray for quiet, Lord
I pray for the Future, Lord
I pray for the Future, Lord
I pray for the Future, Lord
I pray for the Future, Lord
not my writing taken from another great poet of the people
This sums up my husband perfectly! He turned 50 on March 21! I can’t wait till his tee arrives.
Thank you.
Well said sir. I recently retired from LE and your words sum up a career and a transition that helps define my “why”.