A Handy Journey

Eight tiny fingers
two teeny thumbs
soft, pink and dimpled
as cute as baby bums.

Then they start to meddle
hands into every thing;
prints on polished tables
and sticky kisses cling.

Glittery teenage finger nails,
silver rings in a row;
muffled secrets whispered
behind hands in the know.

Hands of dextrous parents
coping with the trials,
the tribulations of travelling
life’s longest miles.

In midlife a crisis,
hands will wring again;
oft’ times in anguish,
sometimes in pain.

With age come rheumatics
wrinkles and the shakes,
dexterity slowly vanishes,
gifts advancing years will take.

In death they lie idle,
turn cold and waxen white
yet as they decompose
they move again… but oh so slight.