Papaw’s hands were mountain-made,
Carved by coal and spade and blade.
Blackened deep where daylight failed,
In tunnels where brave hearts prevailed.

Every wrinkle held a seam,
Every scar recalled a dream
Of bringing supper to the stove,
Of earning every ounce of love.

His knuckles wore the color night,
Though his spirit carried light.
Coal dust settled in each line
Like scripture etched beneath the mine.

Those hands could split a hickory round,
Set fence posts firm in rocky ground.
Patch a roof before the rain,
Or soothe a child through fear and pain.

I’ve watched them cradle Grandma’s face
With roughness softened into grace.
The same hands that wrestled stone
Never let her stand alone.

When Sunday came, he’d scrub them clean,
Though black still lingered in between.
Soap could wash the dust away,
But not the years they’d given away.

Now the mines have all grown still,
Their echoes sleeping in the hill.
Yet when the evening shadows stand,
I still remember Papaw’s hands.

For mountains rise, and rivers bend,
And every road must find its end.
But the strongest thing this world has known
Was never carved of steel or stone.

It was a pair of weathered hands,
That built a life on borrowed lands.
Hands that dug through earth so deep
So generations yet could sleep.

If Heaven keeps what time demands,
Then angels know my Papaw’s hands.
Still stained with coal, still strong, still true—
The hands that built the world I knew.