Cotton Bootie Enlistment
by Odin Roark

How innocent the booties of birth
If only their cast remembrance
Might remain but nostalgia

Instead

Their bronze symbolism
Merely encases a once simple smile
A semblance of purity
Lost ever so soon

History
Like a voracious virus
Infects this childlike innocence
Creates its own immunity
Thrusting virulent audacity
Minimizing one’s virtuous cotton footwear
Naively seeking only durability
A faux synthetic
Or tanned leather

Yet

The species remains bent to create
The next test-tube imperviousness
Minimizing rugged soles of
Arabian oil based rubber
But yesterday’s chapter

High tech miracles
Deliver
Gripping
Climbing
Running
Advancing
Attacking
Conquering
Foot cover impervious
Yet never forgetting such simple beginnings

Ultimately
The acrid smoke
Merging into our heated global atmosphere
Further heats subjugation's resolve
Only the last chapter of earth’s historical tome remains

Postlude

The vortex of history’s repeated resting places
Where roadside bombs facilitate
Body bags of findable parts
Where calloused bare feet of refugees fleeing
Know only purity never lost

Even Salvation Army’s handout footwear
Good for the tucked fetal position
Beneath homeless cardboard shelters
Remembers the booties of birth

Somewhere along the line
Leaden boots seemingly rendering freedom
Remain beholden to the heel and toe of control
Where dominance patiently waits

Try as we may
Weighty footprints
Foretell the future
From birth to death
Their ponderous reality
Remains often guised
But forever remaining
The ever threatening
Leaden boots of tomorrow’s
Cotton bootie enlistment