Robert Paul Allen  lives on a lake near the coast of Maine.  He is surrounded daily by the state’s rugged beauty.  He worked  in the medical field in patient care and has seen the gamut of human trials and tribulations.  The human condition inspires much of his poetry. He has been a serious poet for the past five years and has published 31 poems.  His first chapbook, Between the Panes has just been published. He believes he still has something to say.

Grandad’s Hands

Grandad was a diminutive man. His hands,
scarred and mottled with age spots,
were in constant motion doing chores.
Each day, he milked forty cows before dawn.

His touch was so soft he was never kicked.
My feeble attempts to mimic him 
frustrated the farm cat waiting for a squirt.
Those hands reached into a lowing cow’s 

womb, reversed a breech and pulled out a calf.
With one hand, he grabbed a rooster’s feet,
then chopped its head off with the other,
while I watched in horror as the headless

body ran around the barnyard, blood squirting
from its neck in a frantic final dance.
Those hands wrestled barb wire
into place and nailed it onto fence posts,

and led a team of Percherons to plow 
a farrow straight and true for planting.
They hauled ten-gallon milk cans onto 
wagons and filled trucks with cauliflower.

They drove a tractor, baled hay, then tossed
it on to a wagon to be loaded into the loft.
At age ten, I told him I wanted to farm, too
He shook his head and said “No, Bobby

I suspect you’ll want to do something else.”
When I turned eighteen, headed to college,
my larger hand shook his smaller one, man
to man. His vice-like grip made me wince.

Seeing that, he smiled, let go of my hand,
patted my shoulder, and went back to work.