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A poem written by a friend Joel McKerrow, for this painting:

 

Receive

Joel McKerrow

 

 

I have wrinkles set in the palms of my hands.

Lines that have been stretched across the frame of the world.

I have taken the hands of many within my own.

The firm grip of the confident and over-trying,

the limp grip of the scared and the sacred,

the cold grip of a dying friendship,

the warm grip of those who know me well

            where handshakes turn to chest upon chest.

 

Hands are a threshold of our presence,

            like the rising-tide fingers that first touch the shore,

            like the sunrise rays over the mountains

            like the time you took my own with yours

and raised them to your cheek and raised me out of myself.

Hands are the first part of ourselves that we give to another.

            They are the first to receive.

                        They are the first to hold.

                                    They are the first to let go.

 

 I hold love in my hands and let it leak through my fingers,

            for when I grip it too tight there is no more for either of us,

so I stretch out my fingers

hold them below the dripping hands of those who look me in the eye,

take their water as my own,

let it find its escape, to give its love,

            to the hands of those who have placed them beneath my own.

 

May I only ever receive so as to give again.

May I posture myself towards you open handed and willing.