Those Gentle Hands

his hands

tools of creation

stronger than nations

power without end

and yet through them we find our truest friend

his hands

sermons of kindness

healing men's blindness

halting years of pain

children waiting to be held again

his hands would serve his whole life though

showing man what hands might do

giving, ever giving, endlessly

each day was filled with selflessness

and i'll not rest until i make up my hands what they could be

'til these hands become like those from galilee

his hands lifting a leper

warming a beggar

calling back the dead

breaking bread, five thousand fed

his hands

hushing contention

pointing to heaven

ever free of sin

then bidding man to follow him

his hands would serve his whole life though

showing man what hands might do

giving, ever giving, endlessly

each day was filled with selflessness

and i'll not rest until i make up my hands what they could be '

til these hands become like those from galilee

his hands

clasped in agony

as he he lay pleading, bleeding in the garden

while just moments away

other hands betray him

out of greed, shameful greed

and then his hands

are trembling

straining to carry the beam that they've been led to

as he stumbles through the streets

heading towards the hill on which he died

he would die

they take his hands, his mighty hands, those gentle hands

and then they pierce them, they pierce them

he lets them, because of love

from birth to death was selflessness

and clearly now i see him with his hands

calling to me

and though i'm not yet as i would be

he has shown me how i could be

i will make my hands like those from galilee

~Kenneth Cope