Little chubby hands, right from the womb.  She sucks on them when she begins to root and sleeps with her hand rested up by her cherub face, just like she did inside my tummy for those careful 9 months.

Those soft hands grow up, and they learn how to be gentle, and not used for violence.  

Those hands hold fine dining tea parties and brush those dollies locks of hair, over and over.

Hands that learn to grasp a pencil and write her first words.

Hands that hold that boy’s hand for the very first time, and butterflies overtake her and she thinks she just might float away right then and there.

Hands that light the unity candle of love, all dressed in white.  

Those hands, that pull her newborn baby out and the messy glory of it all is so beautiful.

The hands that rock her baby to sleep and sweep those wispy golden locks from her little boy’s face.

The hands that get dirty in the garden, with the black soot beneath her nail beds.

The hands that cup her lovers face, and all is right with the world.

Now those hands are wrinkled and spotted and the veins bulge and protrude.  She rocks back and forth in her nursing home chair, and the creaking beneath her reminds her of her toddler rocking chair when she was a child and the worn chair she spent tireless nights rocking her own babes.

Folded across her chest, she lay with that beautiful lace gown on that soft casket bed.  Those hands never looked so beautiful and graceful.

The hands of a woman are timeless.  In all sizes, shapes, and textures, they tell a story of the beauty of womanhood.  The hands of a woman are used to change the world.

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