I started a brand new notebook today.

Where before there were birds

While you wondered how many times someone's
thrown a pair up only to get more than they bargained

for, I teetered on the edge of a fallen rock to get my angle
on the picture that everyone has. The sky was white

but somewhere up there, uncaptured against it,
was a first shoe, or a last: you'd run a sunny marathon

in yours long lost to the bleaching rain. I saw the multitude
of dances playing out to the wind, and wondered if someone

was still going round creating shoe trees to declare again
their potential. In Shieldfield shoes have begun to take flight

of their own accord, their owners taking to walking firmly past
lest their feet lose control and rush up to the branches,

creating meaning where before there was none but birds.