My Father’s Hands

By Udora Huntsman

His hands have wrestled steel,

Bent brick,

Flung me in the sky.

Strong hands.

Today they buried me

And raised me up again,

More than alive.

Safe hands.

Now, soft as prayer,

They touch my head.

“Receive the Holy Ghost,”

My father says.

Kind hands.

My father’s hands

Could never cleanse me so,

Or fill me with such flame

As warms my soul.

But One who could

Commissioned him

To speak His name.

Clean hands.

I thank my Father

For my father’s hands,

And for His Son,

Whose strong hands bled for me,

Who bore my sins and burnished my desire

For Home, that I might rise—

As light as hope,

Clean as joy,

Bright as fire.

Holy One of Israel by Simon Dewey

Photo by John Luke