Faraway Footsteps

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 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 faraway footsteps Passing near by