Palm Sunday

"And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss."

—William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

"The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark are

how the senses explore the reality of the elephant."

—Rumi, "Elephant in the Dark," 

translation by Coleman Barks

Palm of the Hand

Hand’s inner self.  Sole, that does its walking

just with feelings.  That holds itself face up

and, as in a mirror,

receives from heaven its own meandering pathways.

That has learned to walk on water

when it splashes.

That walks on wells,

transforming every journey.

That finds itself in other hands

and turns them into landscapes,

wanders and arrives in them,

fills them with arrival.

—Rainer Maria Rilke

translation by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

image:  Henna Expressions