To The Foot From Its Child
by Pablo Neruda · translated by Alastair Reid
Pablo Neruda's poem follows a child's soft foot on the journey of a whole human life. At first the foot cannot tell that it is a foot and dreams of being a butterfly or an apple, but stones, glass and streets slowly defeat it and shut it inside the 'prison' of a shoe. Hardened and callused, it toils on, blind to its early dreams, until death finally returns it to the earth, a quiet metaphor for how living wears away innocence.
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- Main Idea: A metaphorical journey of a human life, depicted through the growth and aging of a child's foot that loses its innocence to the harshness of reality.
- Childhood Dreams: The child's foot initially wants to be a butterfly or an apple, unaware that it is a "foot".
- The Conflict: Reality (stones, glass, streets) "defeats" the foot, forcing it into the "prison" of a shoe.
- The Transformation: The soft child's foot becomes a "callused" adult foot, losing its shape and sight, eventually toiling until death.
- Theme: The loss of childhood innocence and the crushing of individual dreams by social systems and physical labor.
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Pablo Neruda's "To The Foot From Its Child" is a philosophical and surrealist poem that uses the "foot" as a symbol for the entire human experience. The poem begins by describing a child's foot that is "not yet aware it's a foot". In its state of pure innocence, the foot has limitless imagination, wishing to be something light and free like a "butterfly" or something beautiful like an "apple". It is unaware of the restrictions of biology or society.
However, as time passes, the "rough earth" begins to teach the foot its true nature. The child encounters "stones and bits of glass, / streets, ladders". These represent the hardships and obstacles of real life. Through these painful experiences, the foot learns that it "cannot fly" and "cannot be a fruit". The foot is eventually "defeated" in this battle against reality and is "condemned to live in a shoe", a powerful metaphor for the social and professional boxes humans are forced into.
Inside the shoe, the foot is a "prisoner," cut off from the light and the world. It grows "bit by bit" in the dark, touching its fellow foot but feeling like a "blind man". Its soft, "petaled toes" lose their beauty and take on the form of "eyeless reptiles / with triangular heads, like worms". The toenails, once soft like quartz, grow "hard as horn" and "out of trim". The foot becomes "callused" and "coarsened," covered in the "faint volcanoes of death".
The second half of the poem describes the adult life of the foot. It "walks without respite," toiling "hour after hour" through "fields, mines, / markets, and ministries". Whether it belongs to a man or a woman, it is forced to "toil in its shoe," rarely taking time to "bare itself in love or sleep". This depicts the relentless and often invisible labor that defines adult existence. The journey only ends when "the whole man chooses to stop". Even in death, the foot remains "unaware" because it has been in the dark for so long. It descends "underground" where "everything was dark," concluding a life that was lived as a blind, imprisoned journey.