A Valediction: Of Empty Shoes
Look at my shoe lying on the floor
where I left it, alone, as if
it never knew the other;
no way to tell whether
it points towards or away, where it
would go if it set out straight
walking, closer to or further
from its mate. Just so am I
directionless when you’re not around.
And even if they both were
here, someone slipped into the pair
and danced, they’d never touch, or
touching bring the body tumbling
down; for shoes must march
in parallel, each to its own
path, never so close as
when they move apart
to make the body move.
So even as I come I say
farewell. Hello left, goodbye
right. As a runner seems to
float when one foot pushes
off to drive him forward, one
poised above the ground to
break his fall, we’ll only be
complete in constant motion,
the give-and-take illusion
that we’re here at all.
* * *
The above is taken from an assignment I gave in workshop to write a valediction in the style of John Donne, paying special attention to his use of the “conceit,” an unusual figure or metaphor that runs through the whole poem and is often taken to absurd extremes. I did another version based on the abandoned car parked out front of our new house, but Tina thought this earlier one was better, and I guess I agree.
Geez — it’s been a while since I posted, but as Tina notes on her blog, we’ve been incredibly busy between moving here and school starting. What a crazy month. More posts soon as things calm down.
Nicely done. Beautiful poem. I love John Donne. I took a class about him at UC Boulder in 1990 or 91–I thought it might be boring, but I was really intrigued, intellectually stimulated and even sometimes moved by his poetry. I think Poetry is the best form of communication through the ages.
I like it. I’m also cosmically bothered: perhaps it’s nothing, but just today I wrote an Ode to Shoes for my middle schoolers. Coincidence that we both wrote traditional poems about shoes? I think not!
it’s weird… i gave this assignment to kathleen’s class, and not a single person actually did it “right” — in fact I got three to “opt out” and one person complained about it at the alkek reading… I really didn’t think it was that hard — very time-consuming, for sure, but not even as difficult as some of the stuff we did last fall (hello, sprung-rhythm!).
as for the shoes… well, if you tell me you also wrote about an abandoned car, that’d be downright spooky.
Yes! I wrote a limerick about an abandoned car:
I once had a two-door Ford,
but wanted instead an Accord,
so I scrapped the jalopy,
and said to my Poppy,
This Honda just won an Award!
Okay, so I just wrote that right now, but still, shoes….I mean, c’mon!
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