David McClure
© 1999

of hands

It takes time
even in springtime hills
to stop crowding thoughts

Some hours of
sunshine and passing cloud
watching motionless

Birdsong needs
no inner voice saying
listen to the birds

Later is
time enough for lines
of eulogy

From a thicket of gorse
hirpling blind dying
a rabbit with myxamatosis
a baby

And the voice that says
unclean leper unclean
drowning the birdsong

Let there be
the smallest of miracles

He lays his hand
on its trembling warmth
and is healed