Within Your Hands

[Dark Muse]

Within Your Hands

It is all about your hands,
the way your fingers hold my breath,
and keep my heart beating steadily,
sometimes like birds in fleeting movements
I watch them weave patterns in the air,
and there are shadows upon the walls
which pass by like clouds, unannounced,
but you move them aside, make them vanish,
it is all without effort.

Your hands live their own lives,
they are my life and death
each finger is named for one of the Muses,
divine inspiration in its own right,
they give ambrosial pleasures,
they are eternal.

But what of the last one you ask,
that has passed unnamed,
it remains for me and me alone,
it is your mortal being
which can be forgotten sometimes
in the god-like creation your hands exorcise,
they even sculpt me, because they know
how to draw beauty out from even the most
desolate places.

In their silence much is said,
but they still harbor something of mystery,
I imagine they have their own dreams,
and there is much of us held within those
unseen, unattainable spaces.

Within their ever changing shades I read the seasons,
for summer they are Earth-like, strong and stable,
unwavering, in spring they are ghostly, beyond sight,
for they begin to bury themselves inside of me,
in Autumn they become burnt umber and infused
with warmth and cinnamon, in winter
they are almost translucent, and seem most elegant
the way symphonies spring from their fingertips.

I watch them, your hands
they know arcane secrets, they perform sacred Alchemy
and they transport me, they fly away with me,
I have seen their shadows, I have seen the shadows
beyond the shadows, but it alters nothing because
your hands will dedicate lifetimes to uncovering pearls
inside of me.

[Buh4Bee]

This has a lovely flow and reads easily.


As a reader, I lost you when I read these lines. However, I understand your intent when writing this as a writer to your lover. I believe that this is a very personal comment, not meant for the reader to understand.

But what of the last one you ask,
that has passed unnamed,

[Dark Muse]

This poem is one that does have some secret meanings, and there is something almost of the love letter about.

I did wonder about how enigmatic that line might be, but it also does have a very clear meaning.

It is a reference to the lines above

"each finger is named for one of the Muses"

Being that there are nine muses and 10 fingers,

the lines

But what of the last one you ask,
that has passed unnamed,

is a reference to that 10th finger, which has no muse.

[AuntShecky]

One thing you might want to avoid is letting abstractions --e.g. "harbor something of mystery"--detract from the highly specific and vivid imagery, such as "the clouds pass by unannounced." Some careful pruning would help. Some of the line breaks seem random and arbitrary. Also, there is a tiny typo: "the (instead of "they") give ambrosial pleasures."

Other than that, there is much to admire in this piece.