SENSIBLE SHOES

[Let's Walk]

Sensible shoes, sensible shoes:
How very depressing are sensible shoes!
When I was little, I dreamed of the day
When I’d choose my own shoes, and could banish away
Winter black lace-ups, Spring sandals of brown:
I’d have shoes like a peacock, to startle the Town!
Shoes in gold lame, with heels inches high,
And shoes diamante to dazzle the eye,
With rhinestones and gemstones and buttons and bows:
I’d have shoes like a rainbow with bells on the toes!

Purple or puce, or lace, white as milk,
In patent and plastic and satin and silk.
And boots - oh, such boots! - in fur, fabric or feather,
To the ankle, the calf, the knee or - wherever.
Then I was grown, and my own shoes could choose:
Farewell forever to sensible shoes!
I bought shoes for the morning, the noon and the night,
I bought heels too high and I bought styles too tight,
In colours and fabrics and fashions galore -
No matter how many, I still wanted more!

And boots - oh, such boots! - and they’d none of them fit,
But that was a fact I would never admit ...
I’d corns and squashed toes and dropped arches and worse:
I tortured my feet and I emptied my purse,
Until age brought me wisdom, flat-heeled and complete:
As feet aren’t like shoes, then shoes should be like feet.
Now the shoes of my dreaming lie hid where they are,
In the ways of my mind, where they’re lovelier far
Than the shoes that I walk in, the shoes my feet choose.
I’m back where I started, in sensible shoes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~