Hands of Time (Original Poem):

A limb we grow, a flexible, powerful, moving end to a whole

In twos with fives and twos of fives as ten

Honesty exhibited in the trembling ends in the touches of fear

Each shake a built up murmur of muscles strained too tight

Torturing itself in the confines and barriers of the skin

Displaying joy, excitement, adrenaline

Palms pool with moisture and drip into lines of the head, heart and life

Watering the creases for they emerge deeper and more defined through the ages, as markers of past, present and futures

Each finger is lowered and raised to count, track and quantify the elements into manageable understandings

With sturdiness and strength of knowledge

With numbers and measurements of fingers and thumbs clasped around bases and necks

Nails brightly chipped and scratched into soft vulnerable flesh to mark an arrival and departure of your stubbornness and mine, and your strength and mine

Curled fingers into pressed fists, ridges of knuckles like mountainous landscapes rising when the sun boils over and hidden when the sky blackens to blue

A fists raised high, charging in momentum for freedoms fought with fuels

Index fingers first, pointed to the heavens, as holy as clouds lifting your thoughts

Palms extend to yours and hover for questions, pensively waiting on answers where softness of fingers brushing unique prints provide all the answers ever needed

As hands and flesh are dissolved into one and tingles race up arms to hearts in a competition of endings

Softened palms with hardened calluses are raised again with directed movements through persuasions of the wind

We pass by and pass on, the hands of time.

(Artwork: Felicity Rogers)