UNLESS YOU WALK 

IN MY SHOES ....

Poem for Tuesday - March 11, 2012

MY SHOES

Shoes, secret face of my inner life:

Two gaping toothless mouths,

Two partly decomposed animal skins

Smelling of mice-nests.

My brother and sister who died at birth

Continuing their existence in you,

Guiding my life

Toward their incomprehensible innocence.

What use are books to me

When in you it is possible to read

The Gospel of my life on earth

And still beyond, of things to come?

I want to proclaim the religion

I have devised for your perfect humility

And the strange church I am building

With you as the altar.

Ascetic and maternal, you endure:

Kin to oxen, to Saints, to condemned men,

With your mute patience, forming

The only true likeness of myself.

© Charles Simic