feet

feet

are

calloused

and so cracked

like rocks in plowed ground

she walks over the land barefooted

as her abuelo turns the earth with donkey and plow

she has the feet of her abuelo, for she walks beside him down the long row of beans

her abuelo walks down the rows until his feet are broken and bent by genuflecting to land or the land owner

when her feet are in the soil, it is as if they are the land, as if they hold the secrets of the earth, the mystery of seed, dirt, water

becoming a bean in a pod, a kernel on an ear of corn, a red tomato

her heart is in her feet, in the land, the mystery

feet speak, "Aqui estoy," "I'm here"

feet are signs to us

"I'm human"

"I'm

here"

- Trevor Scott Barton, poems for a brown-eyed girl, 2020