walking in my daughter's shoes by suzn morgan

​She slumped down into the couch
A slight smile on her lips
Slipped her shoes off
Tucking tender feet beneath.
Her shoes, new and smart
Lay forsaken in front of us
Like dying butterflies on a path.
A few fleeting agonizing minutes
And she was gone, gone on
Long past me.
 
She was made of more
Tender non-attachment
Than I, this tough old bird.
She left no personal effects
All given away
Even before her last breath.
 
After long minutes of
Baptising, over and over,
Her softly cooling
Face and hands
With my generous tears
They arrive to take away
Her body.
 
I slip on those shoes
She now has no need for
And walk away
Destroyed, grief-stricken.
 
Ten weeks later
Wearing her shoes
I take her along with me
On our longed for walkabout.
I stride the broken
And cobbled streets of Guatemala,
Weeping without cease.
 
While her shoes
Meant for gentler urban paths
Swiftly lose their loveliness.
I try to be gentle, tender with them
They are precious to me.
Yet I walk through
This foreign landscape
With all its mystery,
And beauty and brokenness
Weeping for that which
I can not bear,
Her now disheveled shoes
And my shattered heart.
 
These charming, delicate shoes
Still carrying her essence
Not suitable for this life
But carrying me forward,
A trail of tears
In my wake.