Welcome to the seventh day of our 30/30!
Your prompt today is:
Write an elegy or ode to the most loved
pair of shoes you’ve ever had.
Guidelines, if you want them:
- Posting your response is not required
- Feel free to post your response  🙂
- This is not meant to be the perfect first draft – respond without hesitation for 5-7 minutes, then keep going if you want to
- While our prompts are geared towards poetry, we welcome all kinds of artists
- Tips & encouragement are here
QuillsEdge Press 
Deerskin moccasins with silver
and turquoise bolos became my
footwear of choice for hiking
through the woods, soundlessly
stepping on last years leaves,
creeping up on the beaver
getting ready to drop yet
another willow down the
bank to shore up the lodge.
Hightops with buckskin laces
I could cinch snugly below the
fringe, these come from craftsmen
to the north, no cheap knockoffs
with a foreign sole/soul. I wore
them until they proved to be
beyond mending, have yet to
find a replacement that holds
the thousands footsteps that
would mean they are broken in.
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ode to my ankle boots
black rough hide, brushed leather
bless the beast you came from
how much i love to wear you
through three pairs of eyelets
i pull and lace-up really tight
how much i love to wear you
the pair of you, sometimes
undone, makes me do you again
how much i love to wear you
my long skirts makes you peep
in & out, hiding you while i walk
how much i love to wear you
wearing you and weather makes
an imprint you show off empty
how much i love to wear you
two inch heels, high enough
to stand straightly upright
how much i love to wear you
Van Gogh painted his boot
shoes, while i praise mine
how much i love to wear you
a change of season requires
sandels and other open shoes
how much i will soon miss you
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Somewhere between the blue of the sky and
the blue of the ocean, your color
comforted and energized.
You rested patiently in the closet
until the time when I would slip my feet
into your worn leather.
Humble and flat heeled you were not stylish,
not even especially attractive,size nine moccasins,
almost boat-like in appearance.
You were beyond functional getting me from one place to another,
scrambling after four kids born in six years.
You were ridiculed and little appreciated by those preteens.
I wore you for longer than I can remember
and forget when and where we parted.
Etched in memory, mine and my kids,
you were more soul than sole.
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Could it be the deerskin? I’m amazed by how some of our language echoes about this incredible footwear. So enjoyed reading yours!
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Pingback: #NationalPoetryMonth’16 Round-up (Day 7) | Bonespark~
Dear Black Ankle Boots
What I love about you most
is the sound of importance
your heels make when I walk—
strike-strike-strike. They say
I mean business. They say
Pay attention. And I like
your criss-crossed laces, but
its your zippers I love: z-i-i-p!
z-i-i-p! Two quick tugs
and I’m ready. I like me a little
heel, the way the calves contract,
the legs on alert, and my toes
thank you for all the room (even
in my favorite blue wool socks).
When I leave you at the cobbler,
I’m bereft. I grow quiet and small.
My pants hang wrong and I miss
your leather hug. Black boots,
you’ve walked me through puddles
and slush. Invincible boots,
you’ve taken road salt’s scrim,
you’ve taken wet grass and mud,
gravel and asphalt’s assault—
I salute you! When I open
my closet to dress for the day,
it’s you—always you, only you.
You’re the ones that I want.
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Ode to a Pair of Doc Martens
You– whose green leather, yellow stitching, and discarded rubber from Luftwaffe airfields
came together to cradle my feet– how could I forget you loved me,
after you carried me away our first afternoon in Glastonbury.
I remember your eyelets after our day of walking
through Cornish time and tide to look upon St. Michael’s.
We saw Virginia’s lighthouse and while my hand touched Vanessa’s paintbrush,
it was you who kept me grounded, steady. Inside, I trembled,
listening to Bloomsbury susurruses and catching the scent of dusty ghosts.
We would kick the cork under the bed and sip into night.
In the morning I would lift up your tongues, slide inside,
and you became my two boats that set sail and let me glide
into dreams on London’s streets and then ferried me across to the ocean’s other side
where we learned to kick up oolitic limestone and calcareous marl
under the sweet taste of mangos and alligator pears
and I traded you in for sandals. Forgive me.
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