Valerie Martinez Shoes

Story about my Fluevog Boots

I love my red boots.  They have been many, many places and weathered every kind of heat, cold, dust, water, brush, meadow, each and pavement.  They have felt the rumblings of fellow feet.  They have heard the voices of babies, adolescents, teenagers, adults and elders in my many years of travel and in my home state of New Mexico.  As a poet, I am a gatherer of stories that lead to daydreams, night dreams, reflections and fancies.  These, eventually, become poems.

"We cannot explain our love of mountains,
clay-red, demoted with piñon, chamois, yucca.
Perhaps it is the expanse between them,
the sky which fills the space, immense,
the breath opened up like a holy book
blank and ever-blue, on and on."
From "New Mexico Fragments," And They Called It Horizon (Sunstone Press, 2010)

My boots are sturdy - built-to-last.  I wear them down then clean and polish them up.  I care for them like I do my beloved dogs; they are beloved.  In my closet they rest near pairs of shoes utterly unlike themselves - fancy flats, sandals, sneakers and high heels.  They are like no other pair.  They have tongues; they speak volumes.