It's Not Just a Body

Jane Hirshfield started her poem, A Hand, as follows:

A hand is not four fingers and a thumb.

She ends it by suggesting that a hand, turned upward, holds only a single transparent question.

Today I have my feet up, not because I am lazy or relaxing or deserving of rest. My feet are up because one of them had surgery yeseterday. My left foot was instructed to sit around today, elevated. My right foot is going along for the ride in support.

And how little we tend to think of our feet (or our hands, dear Jane) on a given day. I use my feet to move things around my house. I use them to go see my children in concert. I use them to be sure my dog hasn't been left in the freezing cold and to mail a birthday card to my nephew and to get to the phone to hear more about my aunt's death. I use them to buy Christmas presents and make dinner and walk in the warm sand. I use them to climb into bed with my husband and to get up from a kneeling position when I pray and to hold myself in all sorts of yoga asanas. I use my feet to connect myself with the world.

A foot is not just an appendage with five toes. My feet are my roots. I like them.

Think about your foot, or a different body part if that makes more sense to you. How much do you depend on it, functionally, and otherwise? How would your life be different without it? Hirshfield said a hand is a vessel for holding questions. I believe my feet are like roots.

Find a metaphor for the body part you are thinking about, and appreciating, and write about it.