Today’s prompt from FPR is quite a time-intensive one, and one that I will tackle later. This morning I have time constraints, so I decided to work with the Poetry Super Highway challenge to write a poem of place about my feet.

 Here is the prompt:

April 20, 2016: Poetry Writing Prompt – Ellen Sander

posted April 20th, 2016

Look at your feet. Are they bare, stockinged, shod? Recall some of the places your feet have been, e.g. the beach, grandparents’ home, the stairs of a school you went to. Write a “place” poem that starts with your feet.

This poetry writing prompt submitted by Ellen Sander.

My attempt:

THESE OLD FEET

These tootsies, cushioned and cozy,
wrapped round in sheepskin slippers,
real homebodies now but oh,
the places they’ve been!

The toes remember the tan sand beaches of Georgian Bay,
white sand of Cancun, the rough broken coral in Acapulco Bay
as the wash of tides roared in, tossed shells along the beach,
then slid back to join the deeper sea.

Acapulco. (Wikipedia)

They’ve suffered through the many rooms of Schönbrunn Palace
and Hampton Court, feared torture in London’s ancient Tower,
rested while we sipped a brew in a pub in Portsmouth,
sat out as inlaws danced at a rustic csárda in Budapest.

Hampton Court. (Wikipedia)

Soles have sweltered in unforgiving sandals wandering streets of
an August Rome, then thankful for the respite of street car ride,
Piazza Venezia to the Spanish Steps, and happy too to find running shoes
from Seoul to cushion bunions every step upon St. Peter’s marble floors.

The same old dogs walked twisted alleys along Venice’s canals,
tackled the top of Hong Kong’s Peak, curled to watch the milking of a Thai snake,
compressed themselves in ice-block boots to schuss down Mogul Alley,
and they still freeze at the touch of sole to kitchen floor back home.

Carol A. Stephen
April 20, 2016

Csárda is an old Hungarian term for tavern, from which Csárdás, the name for the traditional dance was derived.