Poem Therapy at 10:02 A.M. - Jane Hirshfield

Jane Hirshfield


A Hand
Jane Hirshfield

A hand is not four fingers and a thumb. Nor is it palm and knuckles, not ligaments or the fat's yellow pillow, not tendons, star of the wristbone, meander of veins. A hand is not the thick thatch of its lines with their infinite dramas, nor what it has written, not on the page, not on the ecstatic body. Nor is the hand its meadows of holding, of shaping— not sponge of rising yeast-bread, not rotor pin's smoothness, not ink. The maple's green hands do not cup the proliferant rain. What empties itself falls into the place that is open. A hand turned upward holds only a single, transparent question. Unanswerable, humming like bees, it rises, swarms, departs.


I have one week left of physical therapy. Only two more days. Although I'm relieved, I'm also saddened and a little nervous. Therapy two to three times a week has become part of my life, my routine. For the last three months, I've sat in the chair and submitted my hand to painful rehabilitative stretching, scar massage, ultrasound. I've sat there with the other patients and we've told our stories, shared our lives, and encouraged each other through the painful sessions.

I'm grateful to Sam for how hard he's pushed me, and to the entire staff of Summit Hand Therapy, and of course to Dr. Yates for getting all the tendons and nerves back in proper working order. Well, to be exact, it will be at least eight more months until everything is back working normally.

I've been thinking of injury as metaphor. I realize that life is random, okay, and that "things" just happen for whatever reason, but I have to make meaning from everything, so I've started work on a collage about my hand to figure out what I think it means. I scanned my hand today and started culling images from magazines. I think it will be a variation on my voodoo collage exercise, (which I've posted on this blog). I'll post the hand collage once it's completed.

What empties itself falls into the place that is open, is such a beautiful line from Hirshfield's poem. The great philosophers, sages, and poets all say that the space must be cleared, that there must be emptiness for renewal.