Shoes

Tiny monuments of bronze,
impervious to human touch,
yet touching everything human;

Pink fabric stained and torn,
forlorn, abandoned testaments
to a dancer's dreams of fame;

Voices raised in harmonic jubilance -
"I got shoes - you got shoes -
All God's Chillun got shoes!"

Yet, we can see them still,
piled high outside Hell's entrance -
Auschwitz, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen. . .

A mountaineer puts them on
to try and touch the sky;
A firewalker takes them off -
to mock the power of fire.

A soldier spits on a humble rag,
and magic mirrors reflect his face
to the sound of drums and glory.

Mercury, they say, had wings on his,
but then they had to put 'em to his hat too,
just to fix the mistake and keep him upright.

Willy Loman could tell you:
With a smile, some polish, and a longer life,
they could be engines of miracles!

Sometimes, when you're down on your luck,
they're the only ride in town
to get you where you're going.

Goodwill gets 'em free and sells 'em cheap;
But Saks can make you a potentate
from the ankles down.

But the chorus just keeps on singing anyway -
"When I get to Heb'n, gonna put on my shoes,
I'm gonna walk all over God's Heb'n. . . Heb'n. . . "