Empty Shoes

We take care how we choose our shoes.

make sure they fit our feet,

represent our personalities.

So something of us must remain

when they are emptied.

Not just our smells and mis-shapes,

evocative as they are,

but something fundamental

spiritual,

symbolic.

Now see them here

empty shoes

laid out tidily in rows.

Blocked together in a town square.

Rows upon rows of them

that once contained the toddlers

or school children

now dead,

killed by bombs

and bullets.

Our children.

See here

empty shoes

Rows and rows of them

that will never contain the feet

of peaceful people

Our people spanning place and time without end.

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/3/19/thousands-of-shoes-laid-out-as-memorial-to-children-killed-in-gaza

https://dissidentvoice.org/2024/03/empty-shoes/