Cotton Bootie Enlistment

Cotton Bootie Enlistment by Odin Roark How innocent the booties of birth If only their cast remembrance Might remain but nostalgia Instead Their bronze symbolism Merely encases a once simple smile A semblance of purity Lost ever so soon History Like a voracious virus Infects this childlike innocence Creates its own immunity Thrusting virulent audacity Minimizing one’s virtuous cotton footwear Naively seeking only durability A faux synthetic Or tanned leather Yet The species remains bent to create The next test-tube imperviousness Minimizing rugged soles of Arabian oil based rubber But yesterday’s chapter High tech miracles Deliver Gripping Climbing Running Advancing Attacking Conquering Foot cover impervious Yet never forgetting such simple beginnings Ultimately The acrid smoke Merging into our heated global atmosphere Further heats subjugation's resolve Only the last chapter of earth’s historical tome remains Postlude The vortex of history’s repeated resting places Where roadside bombs facilitate Body bags of findable parts Where calloused bare feet of refugees fleeing Know only purity never lost Even Salvation Army’s handout footwear Good for the tucked fetal position Beneath homeless cardboard shelters Remembers the booties of birth Somewhere along the line Leaden boots seemingly rendering freedom Remain beholden to the heel and toe of control Where dominance patiently waits Try as we may Weighty footprints Foretell the future From birth to death Their ponderous reality Remains often guised But forever remaining The ever threatening Leaden boots of tomorrow’s Cotton bootie enlistment