Yesterday’s Faraway Footsteps


How present
This past
Called memory.

Hollow sole dragging
Hobnail boots
Caked with crud,
Mud,
And oil
Atop the landing.

"Drop them greasy clothes,"
Came the sometimes loving voice,
The sometimes malevolent voice,
But always his wife's warning,
My mother's caring way.

So many years past.

Linoleum's impoverished sound
Is so remembered,
Her stepping from stove to table laboring hands
Hefting the pressure cooker
Laden with steam softened cracked wheat
Barely eatable.
That day's nourishment
Weighing upon
Forever toiling legs
Cushioned by sheepskin slippers
Whispering their shuffled prayer:
I care.

Generously ladled,
Chew-your-brain-loose grains
Fit for health,
Unfit for a kid,
Layered my stomach,
Fortified my heart,
Prepped me abler to gather reverie,
So dear.

Then …

There was the sound.
So ethereal.
Heavenly I was told.
Of bare feet
Curling the once-a-day-vacuumed
Pride and joy carpet of sage green wool
Replacing recently vanquished
Throwrug jigsaw mess.

My early youth played upon
Our palace place,
The living room.

Scrunching pleasures,
Toes lapping up that carpet.
Dad's feet,
Awful specimens.
Calloused of years hard labor.
Mother's feet,
Preserved with nightly hot water soaks .
Epson salts,
When we could afford it,
Digits Worthy of pedicure,
Never afforded.

Me…

Always wore my socks.
Heavy wool.
Darned when worn spots
Yelled loud enough.
Mixed colors
When necessary,
Yet always comfy,
Homey,
Loving covers,
For footsteps,
Unaware of the journey ahead,
When steps would have to become strides,
Leaps,
Bounds,
And eventually,
Idleness.

So present these footfalls of then,
Becoming echoes
Foreshadowing paces to come,
When a once stubborn child
Needed to listen carefully,
Or miss the lessons
Still offered today
From faraway footsteps
Passing nearby.