Poems by John H. Freeman Copyright © 2001

Still Hands

Stillness comes like a worm
deep, waiting
for the rain to draw it out.
It eats the earth.

Youthful hands wiped a tear
from my cheek. My mother's hands,
soft as spun globes of dandelion.
Her's were hands that cured scrapes;
washed green stains from corduroy.
Hands that could fold a cold day
into warm blankets and catch rain
to cool a fevered sleep.

Stillness comes like winter breath falls
across stark trees, on blank and naked bones
silencing the staccato-rain; quieting
dulcimer songs.

I am the man that sweet hands
built from rain. Now draped
in leathery blankets of skin,
loose and browned.
I held twisted fingers, sore
and unadorned; folded in stillness.
Hands, now unable to wipe the tear
from my cheek as their strangeness
stows my last innocence.

Stillness comes like fire.
A flippant-orange splinter
beneath the surface seething
until the rain's ablution.

Today, I sat with my mother
at her dining room table. We talked
of our childhoods. I opened the bottle
of pills for her. I handed her
a few painless moments;
still moments, like images
I have of her in her youth.
I handed her some rain;
she drank a choking tear.

John H. Freeman