Shoes
—Painting by Vincent van Gogh, 1888
MY SHOES
—Charles Simic
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.
____________________
—Medusa
For more about Yugoslavian poet Charles Simic, see www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charles-simic/. To hear “My Shoes” read aloud, go to www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42948/my-shoes/.
—Charles Simic
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.
____________________
—Medusa
For more about Yugoslavian poet Charles Simic, see www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charles-simic/. To hear “My Shoes” read aloud, go to www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42948/my-shoes/.