Calloused Hands

He showed me his hands at the end of the first summer I worked,
He said: look at what happens when the work is not shirked,
The callous is the record of the effort laid against the tool,
Every hard patch on the palm is from a specific rule.

Calloused hands are the autobiography of the work performed,
Calloused hands are the evidence that something has been formed,
Calloused hands are not a sign of anything but do,
Calloused hands are what the earned life puts on you.

I have desk hands now, soft from the keyboard and the pen,
And I miss the calloused hands I had back then,
When I worked the summer crew and came home with the proof,
That I had done the physical thing and held aloof.

From the soft complaint of people who had never gripped the bar,
The calloused hand is the mark of having gone that far,
Into the work that the body registers as real,
Calloused hands are the earned life made to feel.