Hands Upon the Rock

A man kneels in the sun, places his left hand upon the red quartzite. He outlines it, then chips its likeness into the rock. A child, on her knees, lays both her hands upon the same warm stone and whispers, "I feel ...hope!" Perhaps several thousand years have passed between these two incidents at the Jeffers Petroglyphs site. Whatever place or time or culture we inhabit, our hands define us as humans. We are alike.