Amen fingers

Poem by Dana Smith

Today I bless the fingers
of the woman who uses yellow thread
to mend a hole in my red sweater.

She reads the need of a minute daisy
for my light-deprived brain
in the dead of December.

And I bless the hands of a neighbour who paints
the poppy heads from her garden, leaves the long colours
of summer on doorsteps on winter solstice.

Amen to deft hands making margaritas.
Those trusted index fingers and thumbs holding limes
evolved from the old the clever apes.

I give thanks to women who have faith
to plant lavender and clary sage.
They make soap for us, swirl songs

of Aurora Borealis that wash us with wild flowers.
Amen to the women who dry dung and dig clay
for their houses. Bless well diggers, carriers of water.

A final amen for the man who weaves coffins
for his sister, his mother, his father,
who plants fields of wild flowers and willow

for their caskets’ weave. He who keeps the stones
he finds as he digs their graves, saying to me,
‘Nothing is wasted. Ever. With these bits I will make things.’

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