My Grandmother’s Hands

Watch!  The dissappearing hands!
Still the dough will be rolled, the bread made
but by whose hand?

This is my hand.
This is my grandmother’s hand.
Our hands are very different.
We grew up holding different things.
My grandmother grew up holding crops.

I grew up holding crap, things that never lasted.
This is the difference between us.
Sneakers I flung onto telephone wires while figs came into her hands.
My grandmother handles every thing like there’s a life inside it.
Even plastic!  Plastic, she holds like an egg!
There is life inside it.
Plastic, she holds like it grew right out of the ground I’m standing on!
Guarda questi mani a scomparsi!
Questi mani mai visto in L’America.
Le mani delle campagna, e la mano!
Le mani dell’aria fresca,  e la mano!  
Le mani dello cavallo, e la mano! .  
Oggi tutto fanno per la industria. Niente fa di mano.

This is my hand.
This is my grandmother’s hand.
You know how her hands were made?
From the kitchen to the fields, from the kitchen to the fields,
from the kitchen to the fields to the kitchen.

To the kitchen she carried,
she carried water dead chickens and eggs.
Water dead chickens and eggs and this
is my grandmother’s hand.
This is my hand.
It’s the life that makes the hand.
Her hands have eggs inside them.  
My hands cannot make what her hands make.
My hands open
books.  Questi mani no sape niente.

Nonna!  Show my hands to make the little circles!
Show my hands to flick cavateel so they jump like grasshoppers off  the fingertips!