"These Hands", a poem of mine

This Poem, "These Hands" made the short list of 83 poems that were selected out of 1,952 poems entered into the Fish Publishing Poetry awards for 2020.

These Hands

These worked hands

warmed by the first cup of tea in fog held light.

These hands have been building, cutting lumber, and wood,

creating, and they are tired.

I think of the mythical figure of Jesus, and his craft of a carpenter.

What did he make? This craftsman of men, women,

children, the infirmed, and the blind.

It is said that all the craftsman had to say was walk

and the crippled would walk,

open your eyes, and the blind would see,

or his hands touching water to make wine.

Now, that is a craft, that is miracle.

I imagine Jesus talking to a pile of lumber,

to become a chair, and the miracle happening there.

The lumber organizing all by itself.

How does this happen and why can’t it happen again?

This carpenter said to his coworkers that when I am gone you will do

more fantastic miracles than these.

What is a miracle?

From the Second College Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary,

“An event that appears unexplainable by the laws of Nature

and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God.”

from the Latin miraculum to wonder.

Amazingly, two words down in this dictionary is the word mirage. “something that is illusory or insubstantial,”

from the Latin mirari to wonder.

Is not every day in this Universe a wondering, a wonder?

Do magicians create miracles?

All these acts of Jesus, the saints, and anyone,

who leaves us in a state of wonder,

are they not a miracle worker?

Nurses, doctors, artists, all people who create?

What can I call this world, this life right now

when it is full of wonder?

Is it not a miracle?

Is it not a Holy miracle?