The Lonely Shoe Lying on the Road

One sad shoe that someone has probably flung

out of a car or truck. Why only one?

This happens on an average one year

in four. But always throughout my

life, my travels, I see it like

a memorandum. Something I have

forgotten to remember,

that there are always

mysteries in life. That shoes

do not always go in pairs, any more

than we do. That one fits;

the other, not. That children can

thoughtlessly and in a merry fashion

chuck out someone's shoe, split up

someone's life.

But usually that shoe that I

see is a man's, old, worn, the sole

parted from the upper.

Then why did the owner keep the other,

keep it to himself? Was he

afraid (as I so often am with

inanimate objects) to hurt its feelings?

That one shoe in the road invokes

my awe and my sad pity.

by Muriel Spark

"Reconhecemos o problema da destruição do ambiente. Contudo, parece que só muito lentamente é que estamos a tomar consciência de que a salvação da ecologia depende da salvação da nossa camada de ozono espiritual e, em particular, da salvação das nossas florestas tropicais espirituais. Não nos deveríamos já ter questionado há muito sobre o que se passa com a conspurcação do pensamento, com a poluição das nossas almas? Muito do que aceitamos nesta cultura media e de consumo corresponde, no fundo, a um lastro tóxico que conduzirá, quase forçosamente, a um envenenamento espiritual."

In "A Luz do Mundo"

Peter Seewald