Grandpa's Hands

I remember as a child,
Taking Grandpa's hand
And feeling all the calluses it bore
And seeing all the cracks
That held a little grease
Left over from some
Mechanical chore.

His fingers were quite twisted
With knuckles very large
From arthritis that he
Tried hard to ignore
Although it was quite painful
And his hands were always sore
He never failed to reach out to me

When I came to visit him.
As years passed by and I had grown
And Grandpa had retired
He'd often sit within his chair
To smoke a pipe that sat
Within his twisted hand
And I admired

The fact that he always would
Reach out to me to shake my hand
Although it often was his left
Because the right one hurt
So badly and was stiff
With pain so bad his pipe
He could not heft.

Too many years of labor
On the farm and with the cows
While rheumatoid arthritis
Slowly destroyed those hands
That had worked and scraped
And built for his family.
Those hands are something that I miss.