The worst crime is to leave a man’s hands empty.
Men are born makers, with that primal simplicity
in every maker since Adam. This is pre-history,
that itching instinct in the criss-crossed net
of their palms, its wickerwork. They could not
stay idle too long. The chained wrists couldn’t forget
the carver for whom antelopes leapt, or
the bow-maker the shaft, or the armourer
his nail-studs, the shield held up to Hector
that was the hammerer’s art.
— Omeros