washing my father's feet

[for my sister, on the eve of all soul's day]


descending through the night,
i see the new moon cradle its shrinking shadow….

it hangs suspended in the crystal black sky

above city lights
watercolored
by the first drifting wisps of marine layer….

the lights look soft and smudgy,
whiskering their pastel colors across vast empty parking lots,
and impromptu fields and wetlands….

i follow them with my eye,
their softness easing my homecoming….
like landing into a bed of cotton,
not the harsh cold real asphalt of life….

we sink and sink, coming down from
the crazy liminality of space and time and dreams and grief,

and pictures of you flitter around the edges of my
blackness….

i see your burly shoulders,
with just a little hair on them,
which used to scare me…

i see your white muscle shirt, your bermuda shorts,
your brown dress socks and old loafers
and the shock of your extremely white legs
mowing the lawn on a warm summer evening….

all the kids loved our lawn best, it was soft….
and dark, dark green….
we could tumble ourselves silly and lay on it forever
and watch the clouds
and never get itchy….

i see a white stetson hat,
a salt-and-pepper mustache,
and a sometimes silly grin
atop a grey suit
or your blue church one….
the one i asked you to wear to my wedding,
and you did….

i see your shiny brown pointy-toed cowboy boots,
and i can still smell your aqua velva…..

i see you carrying an axe in your strong
leather-gloved hands,
stomping through the snow ahead of us,
laughing, actually, amazingly,
as we children raced around running and screaming
through the trees,
completely wrecking the mountain stillness
in our excitement to choose a
christmas tree for you to chop down….

i see you angry after work,
swinging a sledge hammer with intensity,
splitting wood
like maybe you were splitting heads….

i see you powerful,
scary,
the judge, the jury, the jail….

and

i see you gather up

your rambunctious, rebellious, willful, noisy,
half crazy, half wild,
not indoor not girly daughter….

pick her up, with her bloody foot,

back from her tricycle adventure
through a construction site,
exploring piles of lumber….
and dirt clods bristling
with rusty nails….

you held me so softly
in those strong scary hairy arms
and murmured all the fatherly things i always wanted to hear….
as you washed my feet in the sink….

and i see myself,
a lifetime later

sitting on the floor

washing your feet…

you, a smaller man,
bent, and wrinkled….
still able, though,
to both twinkle and be angry….

i see our lives coursing through my blood
and my memories
as i lather and rinse and dry….

i see you still holding the power to bless me
as i gently place your feet on a soft, clean, white towel….

and say to you that i hope, in my life,
i’ve made you proud….

‘oh yes!’ you say,
in answer to my girlish question….

i see you wiggle your toes at me
and smile as i rub them with lotion….

and i wonder what miracle on earth
brought me to this moment
in my life….

that i should sit here
at the end of yours
in silence
and trust
and love….

washing my father’s feet….


________
©2010
Beth Anne Boardman

2 June 2010

photo courtesy brian boardman