Helen Keller’s Hands

A Short Free Style Poem

, colored photo by Michael T Sanders, Wikimedia Commons

I am stuck
in that moment
when Helen Keller’s hands
were held under the torrent of water
coming out of the well pump
by her teacher
who was signing
the hand gestures of “water”.

I am teetering between
the fury of solitude
and
the glimpse of connection
when understanding bursts forth
like a sudden bright light
in the darkness,
like birdsong
in silent wilderness.

— — — — — —

from Nella Braddy Henney’s journal entriesHenney noticed that Keller was rubbing some of her fingers on March 31, 1947 while they were at lunch together. She asked Keller if they hurt — “not now,” she replied. Henney, however, wrote that Keller was “obviously lying, else she would not have been rubbing it.” Keller went on to explain that “it does sometimes. I get so fatigued reading and writing.” As she reflects on just how much Keller uses her hands, Henney concludes “frantically all she gets comes to her through her hands and…