By. Camille Campbell
My grandmother slips off
her bulky crocks in the
evenings and tells the story
of her life.
Shadows play on the creases
and blemishes
of her feet,
every scar is a crinkled page,
every mark is a stamp on her
everlasting passport.
My grandmother’s feet are
the adventure map of her life.
My grandmother’s feet are
hard work on the farm,
working from dawn to dusk,
not seeing more than the same
gray skies and plain fields,
She tells me the story,
of her, a brave young woman,
whose spirit called her
and whose feet carried her
over blossoms of hope
to an adventure that
she yearned for
away from the farm.
My grandmother’s feet are
the volunteer projects
she worked in Africa,
stacking bricks so they would
one day become schoolhouses
for kids to learn a world beyond
their own.
My grandmother’s feet are
like the mountains she climbed
the joints beneath her battered skin,
moving like tectonic plates.
The mountains
are the sculptor of her feet,
forever converging.
My grandmother’s feet are
like the great wall of China,
the pathway of history,
painting her feet
as if they were
terracotta tablets,
the carriages from the Ming dynasty,
the clanks of porcelain,
the path to the forbidden city.
My grandmother’s feet are
like the artifacts that she photographed,
in Egyptian tombs,
the Temple of Osiris,
the treks throughout the Sahara desert,
the ruins of the world.
They are history printing its
story, they are journeys scribbled
across her ankles.
My grandmother’s feet are
her years of work, her life,
earned not by jewels,
but by memories.
My grandmother’s feet are
an adventure map of her life.