Toes poems

Hopefully it's getting a bit late in the year to be worrying about having cozy toes - more likely the sandals and jandals will be coming out of hiding, if they haven't already. The last week or so has had some lovely days, and hopefully there'll be more, though as always, the weather people are forecasting something drastic for us.

Thinking about toes, I thought I'd check out my Evernote clippings to see what came up on that subject.  Surprisingly enough, while there were a few references to that common expression - kept me on my toes - most of the notes referred me back to poems I'd collected, including a link to one of my own. I can quote this one, since I own the copyright. Here's the bit about toes - it comes from a poem called Lying on my side:

Toes keep pace with the quietly shifting space:

those toes (unlike the ankles) soft and less defined,

grubs of differing heights set as extremities,

shift around each other, nuzzling in amongst each other,

comfort spaces betwixt between, sensuous with each other,

revelling in their sockless, shoeless freedom.

There's a nice bit about toes in a poem called Night Rains, San Diego, 2012.  The poem is by Tim Pfau: 

We sailed together, so clever and deft,

occasionally dipping our toes in

hurt, seasoning brightness and space with salt.

You can read the full poem on the Canopic Jar website.

Don Walls has his own website, and there are samples of his poems scattered over several pages. Aspects of my toes is a delightful short poem which you can read in full on the page that has some poems from his book Down the Lane. Just scroll down the page a little, until you find this poem.

Toes only get the briefest of mentions in John Updike's Seven Stanzas at Easter, but the poem is so good, I advise you to read it in full. He looks at the realness of the body Jesus rose in (the same hinged thumbs and toes...)

Finally, Dorianne Laux, in a poem called Antilamentation, also notes briefly a point about toes - and the way the person addressed in the poem has shoes that crimped her toes. It's a poem that suggests we should regret nothing, though I leave it up to you to discover whether that's good or bad advice from the poet.

This photo comes from a post on the KCBakes website, and discusses teal toes. Apparently teal is the official colour of ovarian cancer. There are a couple of other toe pictures there too.