The Measure of Our Hands

We wake each day with empty palms,  

fingers fumbling for fleeting rewards,  

a paycheck folded into tight corners,  

proof that effort can fill a fridge.  

But beyond the clinking of coins,  

there's a language unspoken, unseen,  

it's in the way a smile lingers,  

stretching across another's heavy day.  

You cannot sip from a silver spoon,  

and taste the salt of shared kindness,  

cannot cash in the gift of laughter,  

or deposit the warmth of holding hands.  

We stitch a life in quiet gestures,  

in moments freely given, freely taken,  

an invisible thread pulling us closer,  

to what it means to truly live.