Touch

Hello, Clentin,
Many of us take our senses for granted. Not certain if that is included in the message here, but that is partly how it speaks to me. I have learned to appreciate your poetry by asking more directly what it means to you. Very curious about the comparison of painful prick and delightful sensation.
Thank you!
L

I love the idea here. I play five instruments, piano and various stringed instruments. I also draw and paint. My vocation is carpentry and I’ve had a nail or two shot through my fingers and a close scrape (literally) with my table saw. I’ve hit, bumped, or crushed them countless times. I don’t wear gloves. I need to grab a single nail out of a tool apron. This time of year in New England I’ll go the entire day without feeling the tips of my fingers at all. It’s literally freezing out and I’m holding a metal nail gun with freezing cold compressed air running through the handle.

Your poem made me feel all these things.

I think it could be rearranged for a better reading experience and also it would deliver better as spoken word…

On each hand, we carry
the very tools of discovery.
Sometimes, forgetting, of course,
those delicate cameras
attached to each finger,
until damaged;
Teaching us
through each painful prick,
the delightful sensations and images
we so often ignore.

That’s how I want to read it anyway.

Great language and good concept in idea and execution.

Tim