{hands across…}

I have a friend who has an almost Victorian fascination with hands – Victorian, in that they’re just out there to look at, like our ankles are now, and you wouldn’t think they’d be such a thing, but for that friend, they are. Who knows what turns our dials and prods our buttons. Who knows what makes the human machine whirr, and beep, and blink.

So, hands have been a lot on my mind today, especially in thinking of a friend today who only allowed me to photograph a portrait of his hand – like me, he isn’t particularly photogenic, and his charm is hard to capture. A hand portrait leaves charm largely to the viewer’s imagination. When you have only the slightest glimpse of someone you love, your imagination carries you.

I hate pictures of my hands – they look like fat little starfish. Tech Boy, predictably, disagrees. (I suppose he’d better.) To me, the hands of newborns look like the paws of small rodents – moles and the like – and the hands of the elderly are like road maps… wrinkled topographies telling where they’ve come from, and where we are all going.

So, that’s what’s on my mind today, hands, and love. And I have no idea what kind of haiku is going to come out of this blender…

missing

one heart snagged by chance
catch. Please return intact – may
shatter if opened

But, maybe my heart hasn’t gone wandering. Maybe it was stolen.

indomitable

smash-and-grab looter
five-fingered his discount, but
somehow, it still beats.