John Freeman’s “Hands” is a love lyric built around the charged instant of one person’s hands touching another’s. The speaker is fully absorbed in that touch. The beloved’s hands fall on the speaker’s like waves on sand, soft as moonlight opening an evening rose, and the speaker’s own hands open in answer like an evening primrose. The touch feels both gentle and sacred. Later the hands become white temple towers seen through mist in a distant southern landscape, then a south wind kissing the speaker’s brow. The shifting images—waves, moonlight, towers, wind—keep the moment from feeling static; they suggest something at once powerful and tender, physical and spiritual. Everything else falls away. Past joy and future hope collapse into the present instant, which the speaker calls the great “Now.” The mood is intimate, hushed, almost worshipful, and the repeated “Your hands, your hands” sounds like wondering, breathless praise.
Hands — Summary
Your hands, your hands, Fall upon mine as waves upon the sands. O, soft as moonlight on the evening rose, That but to moonlight will its sweet unclose, Your hands, your hands, Fall upon mine, and my hands open as That evening primrose opens when the hot hours pass.
Your hands, your hands, They are like towers that in far southern lands Look at pale dawn over gloom-valley'd miles, White temple towers that gleam through mist at whiles. Your hands, your hands, With the south wind fall kissing on my brow, And all past joy and future is summed in this great "Now!"