Hands, again...

It is something to face the sun and know you are free.
To hold your head in the shafts of daylight slanting the earth
And know your heart has kept a promise and the blood runs clean:
It is something.
God, it is something,
One day of life so
And a memory fastened till the stars sputter out
And a love washed as white linen in the noon drying.
...see the life, the memory, the love they have, to stay longer than the
plunging sea wets the shores or the fires heave under the crust of the earth.
O yes, clean hands is the chant and only one man knows its sob
and its undersong and he dies clenching the secret more to
him than any woman or chum.
~ Clean Hands, Carl Sandburg, 1922

Precious baby hands, plump, flexible, dexterous, exploring, probing, learning texture and twist and tenderness. My hands hurt so badly. A constant source of pain these days. I am praying that this little trial be lifted soon.