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Ancient Artifact
i spent hours sweeping last night
but my bare feet are still being cut by glass
hidden under the stove
and the peeling tile
and the kitchen table
and the dark corners of the fridge
and the carpet two rooms away
i guess i really can't do anything right
a hook for an eye
this ribbon for a slip
there’s a pigeon in the pot
and tree makes the room
your foot on the boards
your head in the sky
no mind if your stockings snag
are splinter-caught
the red thread
frayed or snag
walk now on swollen feet
on feet that are bound-in
with red and orange
with stocking threads
these can be mended
these can be made whole again
Lacerated grey has bitten
Into your shapeless humility.
Little episodes of roving
Strew their hieroglyphics on your muteness.
Life has given you heavy stains
Like an ointment growing stale.
Endless feet tap over you
With a maniac insistence.
O unresisting street-pavement,
Keep your passive insolence
At the dwarfs who scorn you with their feet.
Only one who lies upon his back
Can disregard the stars.
Warped... gland-dry...
With spine askew
And body shrunken into half its space...
Well-used as some cracked paving-stone...
Bearing on his grimed and pitted front
A stamp... as of innumerable feet.
Feet, I am weary of your beat;
All day, all year, all life you pass
Below me on the street,
Driven upon my hearing as the grass
Before wild rain and sleet.
You snatch up in your tidal tone
The reaching rhythms of my peace
And substitute your drone.
Until intimidated dreams release
The visions they have known.
Feet, I am weary of your stave —
The little course your sounds pursue —
Weary that I must waive
My reaches in subservience to you,
Who seek only a grave.
One road leads out to the country-side;
One road goes by on its way to town;
And always, as long as the sun is guide,
The feet that love them go up and down.
After the evening star's white light
Has lured from the hills or the lighted town.
There are other feet all through the night.
Following dreams up and down.
The patter of a baby's feet
Upon the floor,
His babble at the door —
Ah, these are sounds too sweet, too sweet !
Blue sky, save me from tears !
Soft summer wind, stop up mine ears !
The patter of a baby's feet,
His chatter— oh, too tender sweet !
Of every step I took in pain
I had some gain.
Of every night of blind excess
I had reward of half-dead idleness.
Back to the lone road
With the old load!
But rest at night is sweet
To wounded feet.
And when the day is long,
There is miraculous reward of song.