17th century drawing, artist unknown
A Pair
of Shoes
by
Jan Oskar Hansen
She
was nine years old wore a cotton dress, barefoot and had her
picture
taken. Her mother had bought her a pair of new shoes,
and
the shoes were so lovely she didn´t want to put them on yet.
Her
mother relented the photograph was taken the girl holding
the
shoes firmly in her little hands.
She
looked into the camera with intense seriousness seeing into
a
future she was not yet aware of, perhaps she was but couldn´t
articulate
it, hence holding on to her shoes a symbol of the losses
she
would suffer.
She
married a farmer in Congo
Then
came the revolution and since they had the wrong colour, not
black
not white had to flee when crazed soldiers came, freedom
was
for the masses, who took over the farm ate the milking cows, but
neglected
to till the land. She ended up in a foreign land, but she
didn´t
mind that so much her children had prospered and survived,
but
she was always thrifty never threw away a thing.
~
Previously published in A Poet’s Almanac (cyberwit)
