Quietly

Quietly
Quizmo LaGrande

I sit on the edge of my imagination
Wondering if I have an imagination?
And thinking
Why does imagination seem not in my head
But in my hands?

I wonder
What wistful, willful entity
Wandered so long ago
Into these ten funny fingers?
What being left me the power to wiggle and wave,
But then wittingly controls the appendages
As the daydreams unfold?

I look at tanned tapers,
Once of an artist
Who crafted with ink
Poems of visual inspection.
Finely lined drawings
Dotted with detail,
How did those lovely young hands know
To push the pen just so?
And create

Quiet accomplishments

On parchments all but gone
In brown paper portfolios,
Yellowing in dusty trunks?


I gaze upon aged, mapped palms
And contemplate how hands can know so much?
What intelligent being gave a gift
Then left this silly old mind to merely marvel
At the ease in which the phalanges flow?

How are callused tips
Able to pluck uncharted melodies

From midair

To please and soothe
Their bearer’s raging soul?

Six strings caressed,
Calming minor sorrows,
Or augmenting major glee
Through the elegant f-holes
Of quiet accomplishment.


The journals!
Packed with doodles and dabs,
Grit, and words colored
By knotted knuckles.
I read and wonder,
“Who wrote this?
I recognize the scrawl,
The calligraphy nearly perfected,
But the words—so carefully collected!”

Quietly accomplished.

Amazing what daring digits do.

I read the keystrokes
Of flying fingers
While the page fills
With symbolic imagery,
Or momentous occasions,
Or gut-wrenching agony.

Since when do fingers know?

I see long leathered hands
That stroke warm blonde puppies
And soft black kittens
And squeeze other hands
And know just how to touch their lover,

Hands that are not proud
Nor arrogant,
But gentle, gnarled hands,
Graceful and giving,

That quietly accomplish

Miracles.