Mother Hands
by Mikela Bjork

Place your hands gently over your heart and belly:

One hand on your heart,
one hand on your belly.
Breathe into both hands.

These are your Mother Hands.

These are the hands that cradle the babies.
One, and then the other
and then another
and another.

The parts of you,
the parts of your mother
the parts of your mother’s mother
and your mother’s mother’s mother.

These are your Mother Hands.

These are the hands
that wipe grime, schmutz, drool with conviction.
The hands that gently tug
at the ankles of small children,

playfully crawling away from you
long after they should be asleep.
Firm grip, gentle lug
wrangling through a clenched jaw.

These are your Mother Hands.

These are the hands
that slice meals into bite-size pieces
of nourishment, joy, communion.
These are the hands that gingerly unstick

a tendril of hair from the cheek of a child,
matted down with a superglue of sweat and spit
as his breathing slows and his eyelids fall heavy–
Thumb to third eye, a kiss.

These are your Mother Hands.

These are the hands that clamber over rubble,
freshly bombed cement
searching for–
vying for–

a lost child.

These are the hands that cleanse the wounds
of enemy civilians
as if wiping away the black, red, rust colored crust
will clear the conscience of an entire people.

There is strength
in these hands of yours.

These hands that pulse with wisdom,
with a healing magic that
only Mother Hands behold.

These hands that trace over the bodies
of the loved ones, the despised ones,
the abandoned ones, the disabled ones, the selfish
ones, the obtuse ones, the silent ones. These

Mother Hands

map the pain and sorrow and joy and rage
of an entire nation.



 

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