Homage to My No Bullshit Boots

I have smoothed and shined
the leather of my old no bullshit boots
for over 15 years.
They are 19 years old.
The passed few years,
have not been kind to them.

I wore them in the snow
when I was pregnant
because nothing else was comfortable
and I was too poor to buy others.

The leather shrank
from the rubber soles.
It's time to plant flowers
where my feet used to go.

There must be so much magic
in these shoes.
All the things they've seen and done with me,
since I was 17 years old.

They were with me when I chased my children.
They were with me when I hiked the Cuyamaca Mountains,
They were with me when I hike Iron Mountain,
They were with me when I got poison oak,
and turned into a burning itchy untouchable mess
for a month of one summer.

They were with me
when I reached the end of a twisty narrow,
treacherous trail, and I
listened to a man play his flute
at a canyon's peak
in Ramona where the water rose and fell slowly
over the mountain. All his notes echoed high
before descending into the crevices and cracks
in the rocks of the mountain and sinking in its dirt,
so the music was in the shady Manzanita, wild roses and poison oak.

These boots were with me as I stood in awe at Bryce Canyon,
and waded through Emerald Pools and waterfalls,
they were with me when I traced with my fingers
Indian paintings and felt that thrum beneath the rock,
inside of it, of music, of life, of people
before me and still to come.

My no bullshit boots were with me when I went shopping in Caesar's Palace,
and saw a an Armani shirt that cost as much as some people's cars,
and at Escada saw dresses that cost as much as some people's houses, back in 1995.
These no bullshit boots were with me when I went shopping at Horton Plaza,
exploring the Rand McNally Travel Store.
They were with me when I shopped at Adventure 16,
the spring sale, and I met the South Pole explorers.


They were with me when I knew the sailor-poet,
they were with me when I met my jazz-lover ex-husband,
they were with me when I knew my brown-eyed girl,
and my no bull shit boots were with me
when I deconstructed my proto-animus with fury and terror.

They were with me when I tutored and babysat,
They were with me when I dreamed, drove, wrote stories, poems.
They were with me as I wandered through Balboa Park:
we tread through the arboretum,
in the Museum of Man, we walked side by side
with replicas of our evolving ancestors.

We looked at the pear-shaped, womanly-hipped
medieval Jesuses in The Timken,
and marveled at space in The Reuben H. Space Museum.
They were with me when I listened to the Organ at the Pavillion,
They were with me when I was mistaken for being Jewish
at the Houses of Nations on Irish Day,
I and my mother and sister all wearing blue.

They were with me when I caught an escaped dog in mid-air
as it leaped from one boulder to another on Dictionary Hill.
These boots were with me as I walked the shores of La Jolla,
wandered the cliffs of Torrey Pines, watched the sun set on the boardwalk
at Mission and Pacific Beaches so many times.
They were with me at many a bonfire where
I ate carne asada followed closely by smores,
sang songs and gloried in the stars.

What have I not done in these boots, is more the question.

I can not bring myself to bury them yet.
Perhaps they shall be buried with me.
Or, my daughter will wear them, or a granddaughter
and rediscover their magic.
That's how magic things develop after all.
So much use and then they are put away
until the right person finds them.
Yes, I shall put the boots away then,
until they are properly found,
these magical, no bullshit boots.