Ah, these are my only chancletas, my only flip-flops.
Now, they've fallen apart.
Turned to dust.
There's nothing to repair.
A little bit of wire and tape are all I have left.
I have a few centavos in my pocket.
I could use that to buy another pair of chancletas at a roadside market, but I need to use them for Hilcias.
A new pair of chancletas can buy tortillas, beans and mangoes for a few days on the migrant trail, and I care more for his belly than for my feet.
The migrant trail is so rocky hard and scorching hot.
Barefooted, without chancletas, I feel each step.
It hurts.
But I have tough feet.
My heart is in my feet.
They're feet that've walked the farms and fields of El Salvador from sun rise to sun set, from dark to dark, since I was a little girl.
They're hard as stones.
They're part of the earth itself.
I know, though, they weren't made to walk a thousand miles over the migrant trail without chancletas.
But I walk step by step, carrying a pack on my shoulder that holds everything we own in the world, holding Hilcias in my arms, walking slowly and steadily with abuelo.
We sit by the side of the trail.
I give a small sonrisa, a small smile, to Hilcias along with a handful of mashed tortilla, beans and mangoes.
As I touch his little hand, I notice it is cracked like dried mud, too calloused for a child.
His heart is in his hands.
I kiss him on the cheek.
It's soft like the skin of a mango.
And the sun has given it a mangoes color.
How I love my hijo.
I give a tear to the earth for my bruised feet and his weathered hands.
Once, a kind priest told me, "Our tender God walks the earth with his feet and holds the earth in his hands."
As we make our way to Matamoros and the bridge to el Norte I wonder, does God hold my tender feet that've been bruised by the earth?
Well, no matter.
Whether or not God is holding my feet, I am holding my child, walking beside abuelo, and traveling on.
On my bruised feet.
With my beating heart.
Una vida mejor awaits us.
I hope.
*
Her feet
are calloused and cracked
like rocks
in plowed ground,
like stones
in turned soil,
the soil
she walks over
barefooted
as her grandfather
turned the earth
with donkey and plow.
She has
the feet
of her grandfather,
for she walked
beside him
down the long rows
of beans and corn
when she was
a little girl.
He walked
up and down
those rows
until his feet
were broken and bent
and made him genuflect
to God,
to the wealthy land owner,
to the land itself.
Her feet
are broken and bent
like that.
When her feet
are in the soil
it is
as if
they are part
of the land,
as if
they hold the secrets
of the earth,
as if
they know the mystery
of how seed
and dirt
and water
become
a bean
in a pod,
a kernel
on an ear
of corn.
Her heart
is in her feet,
her heart
is in the land,
her heart
is the mystery
itself.
Her feet speak,
"Estoy aquí,
I am here,
estoy aquí."
Her feet
are signs
to the world -
"I am
a human being."
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