September/October 2001

HANDS

by Daniel Berrigan, SJ

these four-score hands!, undergoing,

prevailing,

transfiguring time

*

first,

the doll’s fist

drawn from my mother,

hands like a heart

made visible,

or filmy fan tails

pulsing,

unready for the world,

ready O yes

for the giving breast.

*

Time will tell.

Time held in escrow

pen & paper &

friends & vows & poems &

pages breathing &

bells nodding

O losses (trailing in dust

a cygnet wing

broken) -

losses

(in spite of)

made light of,

or tears falling

like rain on live coals

singing, singing -

‘Beloved,

in purgatory

abide awhile’.

*

Like wild life

in gunsights,

hands flew

too far afield, too high

*

Hands

like hand gliders —

why not try

higher?

*

Hands clapping

glory! glory! for

stars & starfish -

unutterable heights

alight & alike, &

the meek flotsam cast

dead to the world.

*

Then

a sheriff’s rage

and manacles.

I raise

the noble captives,

whispering;

patience, be patient.

And hands

from dungeons

whisper; Yes; be it so.

*

These hands

hold younger hands,

close

as clasp meeting clasp of

golden strands,

encircling friendship -

and I see

bones

fitted cunningly with

skin close as chamois

(my own),

and pride

occurs to me,

befitting eighty years.

*

I raise

in two hands

horizons entire,

the round white

covenant aloft,

a bread

—no, it is crimson

from His veins, a wine —

(and a few fish

wall eyed with wonder

teeming,

feed multitudes).

*

Voice failing, hands

sign

to stone deaf

(seems)

eternity

—sending back

(if anything),

a morse code;

grief / glory /

*

A beggar’s half dollar

burns in the palm, until

handed over.

That done,

alleluia! Soul

neither bought nor sold, you’re

pure given.

*

Shall I pray,

‘Let me fall,’ or

‘Let me not fall into the hands

of the living God’?

O that the ring

on Your finger

answer!

*

Heaven is south of here-and-now or north, or neither,

but here & now

*

Gestures

are Sixteen-pointed

like stars or winds,

to amplify

not coincide, collide.

*

Hands are

hand-me-downs,

Cain’s, Abel’s.

Nimble as Third Isaiah,

I vault over generations,

their real

and surreal scapes -

to come to

Jesus. His hands

alive,

sign on my forehead

the cross. Take up.

*

Hands brimming

with 7 seas &

7th heaven, Advent’s perpetual

not-as-yet &

sunset palette &

chrism of sacrament,

follies & fustian

& insurmountable

don’t’s & do’s -

sooner,

better than late.

Let go.

*

Miming hands, signing

hapless hands, helping

sleepless hands, weeping

speechless, speaking

winnowing hands, gleaning

imploring, exploring -

hands that dare stand

impeding God’s hand.

*

one day a question;

‘What great deed claim ye?’

‘I dug & dunged & believed &

a few flowers sprang

*

German grandmother,

Irish grandmother,

hands black with residue

of garden or grave -

gesticulate gently,

a dying fall (this after all

is a dream)

I’ll never master

in time, their code—

something like;

‘Don’t fret,

your life (believe us)

hasn’t started yet’.

*

Hands that arrive

undo, make do,

thrive, contrive the world,

(deprived

of mine

as I

one day

of mine.)

*

‘Shall you start over?’

my angel asks.

‘No. Hands demur.

Hand life over’.

*

I kiss my hands

Ave! Vale!

hail, farewell

for whatever task

what tomorrow,

what sovereign word,

welcomes,

appoints -

or does not.

Daniel Berrigan, S.J., one of the most influential Catholics of the twentieth century, is the author of numerous books, including fourteen volumes of poetry.

©2001 Fellowship of Reconciliation