My Shoes Poem by Gert Strydom

My shoes were brought to me on order
from Zimbabwe by a missionary,
a man who sell bibles
and sometimes give them away,
just before Robert Mugabe
did root out the manufacturers and sellers
and the rest of my order went to waste
with another pair of buffalo leather shoes
and a buffalo leather jacket as well.

The black handmade elephant leather shoes
do tread far roads with me,
they try to walk on the tracks
of my deceased father,
try to stand up with integrity
like my late grandmother wanted.

The other day I had them re-soled,
to lay down some more tracks
and the elephant leather
might last a life time
and I wonder how the future
folds open before them?