Who's hands?

Who’s hands?

a poem by Ishani Milward-Bose

Who’s hands have touched this soil?

Who’s feet, bare, have laboured?

Imprinted on our landscape;

From dead skin cells,

Blood dripped from a scraped elbow,

Sweat flowed from exerting bodies,

Under the blistering sun.

A young boy carved his name into the setting cement;

A despondent attempt at recognition, or possession, or ownership.

At materialising and immortalising his part in the process;

Painstakingly scraping cement, hammering rods, welding joints,

Memories of desperation etched into the concrete.

That is all that remains marked

Of the hands that touched that soil,

The feed that laboured on,

The touch that built it up;

The monstrous grey scar in front of me.