IN MY DAUGHTER'S HANDS ARE MY FEET
Patrica S. Kline
( The daughter speaks )
White and gnarled are the soles of my father's feet.
Torn then molded, these misplaced bones inside them
were twisted once and with time cemented in their present places,
out of joint and askew yet perfectly normal in my eyes.
I have grown up rubbing my fingers around huge, white calluses,
relieving their dryness with ointments of forgiveness and love.
Black and daunting is Time.
Time is both healer and tormentor.
It usually frees memory of its pain but like most ironies of War,
Time has allowed these mangled feet to tell the tale repeatedly.
Never releasing their imprisoned audience to the blessing of forgetfulness.
Always reminding him of that chilling moment when
youthful idealism met flesh.
Brown and deep are the moguls,
Carved in the soles of my father's shoes.
Leather shaped to cradle the ravages of War.
They tell the story of a time that I want to live in and yet avoid.
A time so horrible that trench hard pains leap out to crush me
with the words that he uses to excuse the malformation
of his feet. I want to know... yet I don't... but I listen.
( The father speaks )
White and blinding, the twisted metal Flies
everywhere with heat searing and melting. Heat
oppressing in its vengeance on life and technology. My
plane, my friends are floating around me like a thousand bits of confetti. Confetti
in a parade like I want when I get Home. The
warmth that I'll feel in that moment will be no one's, yet everyone's. A
thousand bits of brightly shining play toys are suspended in space around me
slowly twisting in Time.
The sun glints through shards of glass stained with stories
from my childhood when I sat at my father's feet.
Oh my feet!
Red and bloody are my feet.
The pain cleaves reality as I look at them.
No, now is not my time.
Not yet, I want to have a legacy for my daughters.
Something to give them that can not be taken from them.
A belief in a God who doesn't let go unless you tell Him to.
A knowledge that there is a strength that can
sustain you and propel you through and beyond.
A selflessness that allows you to see outside your sphere.
A perception the does not deceive you
but causes you to live beyond the boundaries that
we have set in our own minds ourselves.
These feet are both a blessing and curse,
strength and hindrance
both despised and honored.....
In my daughter's hands are my feet.
Blue and misty are my daughter's eyes
As she runs her fingers up and down the deep indentations of my feet.
Relief to the aching flesh that finds itself released from the conflict.
____________________________________________________
Laundry Liszt
Patrica S. Kline
Poetry Chap Book Available $15 Postage PaidContact patzkline@yahoo.com or call 717-964-3797 or write PO Box 215 Lawn, PA 17041
Safe in my daughter's hands are my feet.
Patrica S. Kline 1995