Tangled in Stars

Witchy Shoes & Bare Trees

This is a photo taken by my friend David a while ago when we journeyed out to the Berkshires and stopped to see the selected works of Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison at the Simon’s Rock Gallery in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. When I saw this sculpture, I stood transfixed, knowing I would be possessed by these shoes forever. Quite simply, because I love them.

They combine three of my favorite things: witchiness, shoes, and bare trees. But the thought of putting them all together could only come from artists with exquisite and edgy imaginations, which this couple has in abundance. You can see more of their work at www.parkeharrison.com.

I once wrote a poem about witchy shoes: shoes that have enticing eyes and are not afraid of thunder or dark alleys or stepping on toes. They can easily cast a spell on the innocent, like the unknowing man behind the seafood counter. Witchy shoes are always cool and haughty; they hunger for the night, for the stars, not salmon, not mackerel, not even scallops at $16.99 a pound!

Imagine having a pair of witchy shoes with bare trees sprouting out of their eyelets! I’m in a swoon, just sitting here, my chilly fingers in their fraying gloves racing across the keyboard, trying to consider what a day would be like wearing shoes with bare trees. It would be foggy, of course, and the wind would blow salt off the water, and the crows would be completely understandable, sharing their secrets about buried treasure down by Town Dock and who is currently courting whom.

Wearing such shoes, I would hear poetry recited everywhere, even the surly man at the Transfer Station would be spouting sonnets one after another and the dentist would be savoring the delicious words of Keats. My house would recount stories of all who who have lived here before me, their favorite windows and places to read, what they enjoyed for breakfast.

I would easily find my way in the fog, the shoes clickety-clacketing down the misty road’s pale yellow line all the way to the shoes’ ultimate destination. And once there, dangling above the clouds, I would hold my breath, carefully cross my ankles, and watch the stars tangle in those bare trees like a song.