I don't know if children still go barefoot all summer like I did.
Oh, to the beach certainly, to the pool, a little bit around the house ... but across the steaming fields? Through clover alive with bees? Across nettles and other dreaded stickers? Into town, walking all the way there (how else?) and all the way back?
I don't think so. Children today are protected in so many ways from so many things. I sometimes think it's a bit of a shame that they don't have the same freedoms we did. But it's a different world now ...
Perhaps it's just as well that they don't know the quiet agony of adjusting to shoes ... new shoes, at that ... after a summer of complete freedom ... for their feet, at least.
Excuse me, please ... I think my toes are starting to wiggle again.
The poem:
SEPTEMBER SHOES
How hot the shoes
were each September,
recapturing feet
that had run unshod
all summer, celebrating
freedoms of childhood.
Even now the memories
make my toes wiggle.
© 1995
(originally published in Capper's)
***
Today's word: wiggle
Afterthoughts ... in response to your comments:
There's just something about going barefoot, Kelly. Our feet never seem to forget those early sensations, the adaptation during the beginning of summer, the feeling of "confinement" when it ends and school resumes. I can understand, though, with all those obstacles in your neck of the woods, why youngsters ... of all ages ... have to forgo the luxury.
Actually, Helen, I hadn't noticed. But Professor Squigglee was peering over his glasses again, as though his radar had picked up something in your direction, so I'm not really surprised that you're padding around in sheer comfort.
2 comments:
They don't go barefoot out here. Cacti and poisonous six and eight leggers and all :) But I remember going barefoot in the sweet grass back east. Lovely!
I still go barefooted, so I wiggled my toes when I read your poem. I wondered how you knew.
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