Barefoot Homiletics

Most of the poems that I’ve posted here are from the late 1800s or early 1900s, as the time of “barefoot boys” as the norm was starting to fade as the country urbanized. That’s not to say that it died out completely (the second “great decline” happened in the 1970s or so).

Anyways, here is a much more contemporary poem about bare feet.

This is from the book Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry by Alan Dugan.

It was published in 2001.

BAREFOOT HOMILETICS, AFTER WITTGENSTEIN AND BOSWELL

Dew in the morning, dust at noon,
soreness in the evening, rest in brine.
Vertical soles all night, sideways
in colloquy, toes down in sex or up,
depending on the gender, depending on the case.
“The universe is everything that is the case.”
Stubbed toes mean found rocks,
so all is detour to the tenderfoot
but traversible to callus. Calluses
are unshod graces, but a
bootless courage has its own
temerity. To strike the foot
with mighty force against a stone
is footless practice, and to say
“the universe is merely ideal”
is shoe philosophy, but
to watch your step is day
advice to the benighted since
feet have their feelings too.
So let the grass grow underfoot:
it tickles on the way to ground,
grass on the one side, roots on the other,
the balance of depths between.
That surface is falsely named
the surface. It is the case,
bare to the foot at the sole:
it is the top of the world
and the bottom of the sky to walk on.
So, seek water. Avoid the shod.

By the way, Homiletics is basically the study of writing homilies (sermons). Ludwig Wittgenstein was a prominent philosopher. I’m not sure who the reference to Boswell is, but maybe it’s James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck, a lawyer and author whose name has become synonymous for a constant companion or observer.