From Boots: A Family-tree Poem

 

From Boots:

 

A Family-tree Poem

 

By Alice Jane-Marie Massa

 

 

I am from boots.

I am from the Levone Valley–

The top of the boot of Italy.

I am from the boots in which my grandmother danced

Aboard the ship La Touraine

Which departed from Le Havre, France,

To take her over the waves and through Ellis Island

To a farm in Indiana.

I am from my grandfather’s boots

that were covered with coal dust

From a Vermillion County mine,

His boots that were covered with dirt

From the Klondyke farm,

His stained boots that pressed the grapes

He turned into red wine.

I am from the Army boots that his second son–

My father–Wore in the 638^th Tank Destroyer Battalion

At the Battle of the Bulge.

I am from the boots

My dad wore as a firefighter,

As chief fire and safety inspector.

I am from the boots the Italian cobbler–

Joe Bello–repaired at his little shop in Clinton.

I am from the boots my mother wore

Through a snowstorm, as she trudged home

Through the impassable road, alongside the windswept field–

After putting up the mail at her post office

And then after leaving her car by Gisolo’s Grocery Store.

I am from the boots that my sister and I wore

To visit the real Santa in Santa Claus, Indiana.

I am from the Hoosier boots

That have walked through Wisconsin drifts of snow and icy sidewalks

Beside Keller, Heather, Zoe, and Willow–

Four Leader Dogs for precisely thirty years.

I should shine these boots

And keep them in my memory-heart.

 

* * *

 

With warm February blessings for you and all on your family tree,

Alice and Leader Dog Willow

 

February 26, 2020, Wednesday

 

 

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