Restless Architects

My Hands

1110.2009

What are these ten-limbed animations,

of air and considerations?

They have become obsessed

with building bridges,

and dying languages.

They are the ten artists —

of song and story,

sweeping lines of lament and joy,

when bursting in their dawn.

They only want to know.

They only want to sing.

They are the stubborn geniuses

of my arms and shoulders —

brilliant in restless motion,

mindless in absent thought.

Their minds are nothing,

mere leaves of skin and bone

knotted at the joints,

aching in their purpose —

it’s a means to an end

for them to remain

so blindly tethered.

O slender branches of my bough,

O harvesters of my garden—

my hands, my hands,

O my maddening hands—!

forever restless,

forever mine.

m.c.f.