POPE D'POET
The Language of His Hands
My father was not a man of many words.
He never gathered us beneath the moon
to speak of love.
He never wrote letters
or wrapped affection in beautiful sentences.
His silence stood in every corner of the house—
stern as a gate,
heavy as an old mango tree.
As a child,
I mistook it for distance.
I searched his face for softness,
listened for the words
other fathers carried so easily.
But all I heard
was the creak of worn boots at dawn,
the cough of an engine before sunrise,
the weary sigh of a man
returning home long after dusk.
I did not know then
that these were syllables.
I did not know
that every blister on his palm
was a sentence,
that every bead of sweat from his brow
was a declaration,
that every meal upon the table
had first passed through
the language of his hands.
Years taught me
what childhood could not understand.
Love does not always arrive speaking.
Sometimes it rises before daylight,
boards crowded taxis,
walks dusty roads,
lifts impossible burdens,
and returns home exhausted—
only to leave again tomorrow.
Now I look at my own hands
and find traces of him there:
the strength in my grip,
the patience in my waiting,
the courage to endure
what cannot be changed overnight.
And at last,
I hear him clearly—
not through words.
Words were never his native tongue.
But through the scars he carried,
the sacrifices he buried,
and the dreams he built
with hands that never stopped working.
My father never said, I love you.
Yet no voice
has ever spoken it louder.
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Our fathers and the mirror of us