Hands Meditation

LAURENCE MUSGROVE

March 21, 2020

If you are following the advice

Set on repeat like a heartbeat,

Look also to see how your hands

Are not only your hands but how

They are your mother’s hands

With her ring on the windowsill

As the soap coats her veined skin

And her fingernails shine under

The kitchen faucet and she turns

To see you walking into breakfast

And they are your father’s hands

Washing his after the garage where

He changed the oil and looks to

See where he can dry his hands

And your mother laughs and hands

Him a towel from the drawer she

Opens with her young hands with

The ring back in place where he

Slipped it when they joined hands

And made you who now holds both

Your mother’s and father’s hands

As you wash and go blind because

You are standing and washing and

Crying the tears they cried over you.

LAURENCE MUSGROVE is a writer, editor, and teacher. His books include Local Bird – a poetry collection, One Kind of Recording – a volume of aphorisms, and The Bluebonnet Sutras – Buddhist dialogues in verse. He received his PhD in English from University of Oregon, Eugene, and currently teaches at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas. He offers workshops on the Buddhist wisdom tradition, drawing-to-learn, and the causes of beauty in poetry. He co-edited Texas Weather with Terry Dalrymple and is currently editing a volume of Writing Texas, the 7th annual conference proceedings of the Texas Association of Creative Writing Teachers. More here.