Old Boots
Found in ankle-length wet fescue
in the centre of the field by the wood.
Not dropped from a height or discarded
in a rush but carefully placed side by side
lying comfortable together as old lovers do
with the best of their years behind them.
There was no one around but the wind
shaking conversations from the trees;
no clues either to arrival or departure
in comet tails of bent and flattened grass.
I reached down to pick them up
not understanding this sign or gift.
Hard worked for sure— countless seasons
where roads were often the last resort.
It was clear the laces didn't match—
the black one on the left a recent addition.
A couple of metal eyelets were missing.
Turning them over— soles not yet worn through,
one heel's steep slope hinted at hirple or limp.
I placed my hands inside them— they were dry.
I traced the stitching on the welt
touched the rough edge of toe cap,
a barley grain caught on the tongue
small clues of their journey
as was the smell of the faded leather I held
conch-like to my ear listening for a life's echo.
About this poem
This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2023. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor for 2023 was Aoife Lyall.
Editor’s Comments:
Use of the definite articles in the opening stanza tells the reader that this is a specific, familiar place. The speaker dismisses foul or careless motivations for their presence, instead comparing their position – and disposition – to that of old lovers. What appears to be a seemingly detached appraisal becomes an exegesis of how the human body starts to suffer wear and tear, requiring more careful attention over time. And for all this – for all the ways the speaker tries to understand the boots – we will only ever have the slightest insight into who they belonged to and how they got there: we can only really know them, as with anyone in our lives, as they are now.
Author’s Comments:
This poem appears in the last cycle of Far Field which was the final book of The Auchensale Trilogy following on from Black Cart and Bale Fire.
The three books and their nine cycles map the changing rural landscape in the West of Scotland centred on the experience of the family farm.
In the poem itself, the narrator attempts to recreate a life from the clues but leaves important questions unanswered. I imagine the owner of the boots as one of those rural drifters which were much more common in my childhood than today. Douglas Dunn has also written about them roaming the Renfrewshire countryside finding food and shelter where they could. In the end the poem can only capture the essence of someone who has trod gently on this land and has simply passed on through.
