Hand Outlines

I’m thinking of a day 

Where we didn’t know very much

And rocks were soft against cave walls

And learning was a red hand outline on a yellow cascade

Little hands grow grow GROW GROW

Into bigger hands

Who know how to use tools

Like clay on a cave wall

The clay has changed

The clay is ink

The clay is lead

The clay is graphite

The clay is a brown paint marker in a classroom tracing a little, growing, learning hand

That little, growing, learning hand becomes a chicken

Or a turkey at Thanksgiving

As they learn that a cow goes mooOOO in the field

And they learn that a chicken cackles at dawn by tracing a hand

And those little hands grow grow GROW GROW

Can you trace the wrinkles on an old man’s hand

Who’s used more than clay as a tool

Who’s shaken hundreds of other hands in his life

Who’s hand is shaking now

Thinking of the ones he can no longer hold

Where did that little hand go?

He remembers as he watches his granddaughter

Trace a little hand

And draw a little beak

And learn how caaAAAWW

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