Grandpa's Hands

Brittle, stiff, immobile; Worn out. With swollen joints and atrophied flesh they trembled. An orchard, milk cows, shovels, soil, daughters, sows, bolts, and floods. They had tended, cherished, heaved, furrowed, carried, slopped, tightened, and prayed. had been cut, scraped, smashed, bruised, bitten, pinched, burned, punctured, sliced. Dirt and grease and oil and dust and grain in every wrinkle and under the nails. Peeling in the heat, cracking in the raw chill; they moved. Ligaments tendons muscles cartilage and bone together in tandem. And they had persevered. Eighty some years of work and worry. Toil and turbulence. Labor, but in love. A softer yet weathered pair intertwines; and clasps tightly. They tremble, and squeeze back. Tired in finality, they relax.