Be
where your feet are,
I’m told.
Yet as the plane sweeps
toward Kisumu, rifted valley
below, universe
around, descending toward
home,
I find my mind
resting not
in Kenya, but just
where my feet are:
air,
among clouds,
at the shelter far away,
that place of refuge
to whom life has entrusted
violence,
with the little boy
who thrashed angry,
body consumed with rage
bigger than bones,
as he looked to the sky, wondered
aloud
‘what do clouds feel like?,’
settling into the straight jacket
of my wrapped arms around him,
kept safe from self.
Be
where your feet are,
I’m told.
And here I am,
fallen straight back
in love with living life
here,
where my feet
hue from resting on this rusty
shade of soil.
And yet,
as that plane swept
toward Kisumu,
descended home,
there was also
a going back
to that sheltered place
where his breath
crescendo-ed to calm
tell him, “they feel
of cotton wisps
and smoke.”
callie daniels-howell 