Distant 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
When linoleum's impoverished sound
Is so remembered
Stepping from stove to table
Her 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
Throw rug 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
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 distant footsteps
Passing near by