(My) Childhood Shoes

(My) Childhood Shoes

I fancied myself free

I danced a waltz tonight

I danced a polka 123-123

I spun on rose petals and pressed on bike pedals

I ran across the bridge cement and metal

bang-bang to my secret place where silver fishes lie waiting

and streetlights play games that are highlights

I skid across the inclined face of the moon

slippery like cheeses down to Natti’s Gap

I plodded along walls that wall in the strong cities

I shook the dust off myself after being made fun of

I had holes

ran a mile

and then I ran another

I felt the cool clay of the cavern-cave

and splashed through the shallow icy water slip-sliding

over rocks to get stuck deep in Lake Michigan’s mud

I kicked up my heels

kicked the cat

and then I jumped over the house.



© Karen Powell

Where I am From

I am from dish pans, the (elbow) macaroni, hamburger and chopped tomato 
casserole and from 60's odd jello molds,

from German ingenuity and weekend trips up to the Wisconsin farm.

I am from the frozen Fox River and ice skating the long ice cracks to the edge of the marsh grass.

I am from large family gatherings at Grandpa’s house nearby where I lay on the floor day dreaming, invisible...and where I rushed in through the green kitchen screen door-slam, to pile high my Grandmother’s table full of sewing things…

I’m from the muskie out of Lake Winnebago that my Grandpa held and from ice fishing and the goose; from venison, from beer and from the brats. I think I’m from “My bologna has a first name, it's O-s-c-a-r. My bologna has a second name, it's M-a-y-e-r…”

I am from cloudy winter skies and from 'Wau-key-sha,' Fond-du-Lac, from Osh-kosh and Neenah-Men-ash-a…

I’m from the “Work hard and don’t complain,” “Before the snow flies…” and “Kill ‘em with kindness” bunch.

…From the land of “Now I lay me down to sleep” and the “Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made…” vacation Bible school.

I’m from my Grandfather’s bumping knee and his big black sedan; “Round, round the corner,” he would sing. I’m from cornfields and cow pastures. I’m from cheese curds and lime green jello with white pear pieces. And I am from plastic cheese.

…From the glass eye my Grandfather Alvin had, the fingers my great Uncle lost on the farm somehow and from the move my father made from the deep freeze to the deep south.

I am from under my Mom’s 60’s something dark wood end table 
...from a brown wooden box with hinges filled with old photos, mostly black and white, stuffed full every which way, photos of good spirited, hardworking staunch German relatives who looked straight at the camera. And I am from a more playful and romantic, kindhearted French lineage, too. I am from an orphanage. I am from the sky. I am from the farm.
I (now know) that I am from the notion...
that opposites attract.

(based upon the poem “Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyon done as an exercise)