1.
A discarded pair of vintage shoes,
vessels of an unknown fellow traveler.
They have seen miles of track;
perhaps they've jived through swing halls,
or rested idly under conference tables
passively witnessing a clandestine agreement between enemies.
Or maybe they were once positioned in a humble bow,
with one knee cocked.
These vessels were cut from the finest tanned animal hide.
2.
(Living beings struck into deadened submission -
yet still alive and able to draw forth pleasure from fashionistas with an eye for expensive leather.)
There they bend, under a knee,
behind a back,
unaware of the question popped
yet witnesses to this moment.
3.
The one question we orbit in our hip-pulling,
face-turning dance of love-making,
the question full of hope and offering,
not in touch with the devastating power of love to grind strong wheat into flour,
broken and transformed and given for sustenance to those in need -
the question comes full of need.
Masked as a happy gift, its ache resides
beneath the twinkling, blinking sharp surface of a ring.
And the shoes bear the wrinkle of this moment, this transaction.
Their fancy cut and solemn strength provide weight and age to a young heart's dream.
4.
And now these vessels sit, discarded.
Propped side by side,
heels nestled in the new soft spring grass,
leaning against the weathered telephone pole,
I observe them and track their motionless existence for three days.
Day four, a hole found on the bottom of each shoe.
These holes mark the passage of time
and the heavy heart of a traveler's life
traced from young to seasoned.
These holes were worn into the soles through days and days of
walking and waking and walking on and on through
the impoverished jungles of urban density that the authorities had planned for.
I see these two openings and recognize them as my own.
I recognize the ragged edge that whistles as the winds howl through them.
I recognize the dirt surrounding the holes,
the lack of an attempt to clean them and patch them up.
5.
I've spent the last nine days watching holes in my lover's side try to mend themselves.
The hospital bed swallowed her fragile frame
and her life force oozes out of the holes.
The holes saved her from death by shit, death by internal contamination.
They cut these holes into her and let all of the
muck come out.
And out it came.
6.
What none of us could see
as we focused our efforts on willing her brutalized abdomen towards health,
was the action and the opening that was taking place
behind the curtain of my chest.
Curtain drawn, the invisible hospital room of my soul
had a poison acid that ate away at me,
creating two creeping holes,
now reflected in a parallel sole sitting unassuming
on the side of my road.
This soul and those soles recognize a common terrain,
a common expression.
And as I ponder the miles of those treading soles
(through rooms and loves)
I feel the same miles fingering the gaping holes of my own soul.
And falling to my knees,
I weep.
7.
The cobbler tells me that these shoes are of a brand called
"Church's".
With a twinkle in his eye, he gropes them and examines them and sets to work on them.
It is no wonder these surprise companions come branded with a hallowed name;
this travel is sacred.
Here, the mundane, the dirty, the sick, the bitter,
are simultaneously at one with the holy.
This moment of sole repair has suddenly become transfixed in me
not as an errand run on a lunch break
but as the alchemy of sweet, mysterious healing.
8.
Two feet (usually ignored) under this
column of dust and chemistry,
are now shod with memory and meaning and common death.
And they are unquestioningly beautiful.
Onward we step,
into more chaos and more wearying travel.
Two holes patched,
others still oozing,
letting the muck out
and waiting
to mend.
