Werner Kessling's Shoes Poem by Sally Evans

Box upon box of my handmade shoes are a marvel on Eriskay.
Smiling, barefooted children skip by my slab-built crofthouse.
On warm grass I watch fishwives, seabird hunters and boatmen
slave for their innocence in a primitive paradiso.
Holed up in stone igloos we keep out the weather in winter.
Under my delicate thatch I wind my gramophone music.
Our palace stood beyond the clinking glass of Vienna.
Then, with the country's turmoil, my family turned against Hitler.
So I fled in my shoes and led my acquaintance to Melrose.
Where in Europe is safer? Shoe-shaped portents and warnings
Followed with each memory, delight, hope, music or fashion.
No more mayfair shoes, but drifting at last onto Eriskay,
I found my feet.


from The Great North Road 2007