...Old Dancing Shoes Poem by Ken e Hall

You lie there belying your age black and shiny
Patent smooth, untreated soles smoothed
With thrice of a thousand steps,
You never let me down gripped
With candle wax for sure footsteps,
Cracks line your skin we have grown old together.
I’m sure I saw you shuffle softly in answer as I speak.
Remember on a laid floor in front of the steps
Of Sydney’s beautiful Opera House
The quick 1 2 3 of a Straus’s Viennese waltz
Struck up, my wife’s stunning white and mauve flowing gown
Trimmed with soft ostrich feathers glistened in the
Warm Australian sun,
What a magic feeling dancing together as one and
With shoes that fit like a glove
You never let me down.
Your finest hour came, laces ‘an all
My God at that wonderful venue
Canberra’s great hall of Parliament house,
A very nice venue indeed for competition.
The magnificent floor laid from only Australian trees
Except the ebony...Papua New Guinea’s gift
Five lines of twelve sixty in all, in turn
Took to the floor,
Shiny shoe you glided along to a Sinatra foxtrot,
You did your best and stood at the heels
Of the winner on the podium,
Old soft shoes
You never let me down.