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Earth brown hands
with bulging rivers pulsating
up her fragile arms
these are working hands
cooking and cleaning hands
raising seven children hands
the rivers on these hands
throbbed with the blood
of my ancestors
these are feeling hands
they touched souls within
the faces of those who's
existence is but a memory
these hands have caressed my face
and blessed me with a rich history
passed down from generation
to generation to generation
these hands lie listless in a bed today
no cognitive thought to direct
them a purpose
these are the hands of my grandmother

These are my father's hands
Coffee stained hands
inclined to destroy hopes and dreams
these hands became fists
and raged with hate, they were
his drumming hands, his drinking hands
his punching hands, they
conveyed an endless string
of false promises
these hands when left to their own devices
longed to connected with neglected children
grasping and pulling them into the past
These hands symbols staining
memories of violence

These are my hands
they looked like papí on this side
and mamí on the other side hands
with bulging veins traveling great distances
from the outreach of my fingertips
to the great beat of my heart hands
I wondered as a child would these
hands be the hands of violence and destruction
would they be the hands of housework and child-rearing
Would these hands have yet another purpose
A divine purpose, a gift bestowed upon me
A destiny to use these hands
they are searching hands of
near misses, manipulating pen to paper
these hands are on a a journey
across space and time to
connect what once was to
what now is
these hands carry love and rage
and it is because they love
that the violence from that rage
can meet with the page and
become the sweet lyrics to life's melody

These are working hands
raging hands
powerful hands
soul touching, mind opening hands
Uncovering the past
and diving into the future
hands