Death Of A Pair Of Shoes

They're dying on me! They've lived
Faithfully, Christian
Servants honored
And happy helping

And pleasing their master,
A tired traveler
Ready to quit
For peace of soul and foot.

These soles know. They know
Step by step long rambles
And wet days, floundering
Among slop and cobbles.

Even the color drains
From the sad skins
Which, plain as they were, livened
Some forgotten festival.

All this announces a ruin
I don't grasp. The affliction
Of living corrodes honor.
They're running. Specters! Shoes!


~Jorge Guillén (Translated by Philip Levine. Roots & Wings: Poetry from Spain 1900-1975. Hardie St. Martin, Editor. Harper & Row. 1976. p.137)