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.