Open Hands Are Bigger

Jireh Grace Pihoc

Her life aches to be told
—a girl born unto the giving light.
A flower released into the earth's fragrance,
kissed by the hands that paid
dear bills her breath was worth.
A name that speaks of the One who fills
all her empty
from the time she curled, beating unto eternity.

Though her name calls for
the Hand that blesses to bring her gifts,
through the years she was formed
under the weight of a humanity
not as a bowl that receives
but as a jar that pours
all the more that she is poor.
Saving grace that she is in
made her say her grace for her kin.

To wonder into someone's breath
her lips may touch to her blossom's death.
She meets their souls where she must set
—she is a sun that they have wet.

She never saw in future days
her paths she tilled would be set free
to make the most of someone's tree
after she paid dearly the fee.

The little troubles she spent with thrift
for all the lives she could have lived,
if she must tell, one must believe
how easily her life could spill.

Through all those days she yearned some thanks,
Her Lord spoke her life to feel much taking
so that to open her hands is to stand ready to receive
though much lash only returns to grief.

For there is the kindest gift
that makes its home in her softness
though she has yet to break
so she may well accept.

That with all the failings of her kind,
One of divine, though man, took it all to fade,
and for all her wailings beside her crowns
His face shed tears and blood to wash.

A dove that spreads the olives of her heart,
the musk of her earliest love,
a candle that puts her dark into oblivion,
her only joy that stays
the more it pours.

The bills they charge unto her name
pay her back in smiles and meals,
white seeds that feed the more she reads,
and all the grace she only needs.

In the quiet,
He grew her life to be blessed only to give,
of many lives lived that others may mend,

by whose hands hold more than she could take
that each morning all the more that she would wake.

Jireh Grace Pihoc
Poet

Jireh is a Filipino poet and creative raised in Metro Manila. With a diverse background that includes roles as an architect, researcher, journalist, and creative writer, she has self-published six beautifully illustrated chapbooks of poetry. She is an author in the poetry anthology "To the Newspaper" (Poets' Choice, 2020). You can explore most of her published pieces online via linktr.ee/jirehgracepihoc.

Photography by Vitor Diniz