where is the line    between    greatness    and    humanity

I watch my uncle's hands                                trembling
as he tries to button his shirt

                    thirty years of surgery
                                                     now undone by time

the precision that saved           hundreds
                                                     betrayed by his own flesh

                    (in the mirror
                                        his eyes                     still steady
                                                                                  still searching)

greatness lives                                            in the space
                                                                            between
what his hands                     can no longer do
                    and how they                        reach for me                still