Ballad of the Cobbler’s Shoes
Rural Action Derbyshire charity reports
children are doing P.E. in wellingtons.

You try doing star-jumps, steps,
or squats, in knee-high wellies.
One at first, then in twos
and threes as term ran on,
turn-up for P.E. in wellingtons.
It’s not we’re feckless or lacking
internet, it’s the cost of trainers
v. the price of keeping warm.

When the cobbler doesn’t work,
we are shamed and go unheeled.

Other kids, decked-out in stripes,
swooshes, and Gore-Tex uppers,
laugh, then fall silent in their new
shoes. A welly flies off a foot
to catch a P.E. teacher in the cods.
Skipping’s best, though in boots,
the socks slip, and rubber wears
a vivid welt on bare shins.

When the cobbler doesn’t work,
we are shamed and go unheeled.

For stamping out puddles,
or damming a drain, wellies
are a water-resistant friend, but
flapping at a knee
like grass in a gale, a young life
learns only helplessness. A horse
bolts a blacksmith’s forge un-shoed,
to cavort, kicking, over an open field.

When the cobbler doesn’t work,
we all are shamed and go unheeled.

To An Occupier Burning Holes, Ken Evans’ most recent  collection, was published by Salt . His poems appear in Poetry Scotland, Magma, Under the Radar, 14, The High Window, IS&T, The Interpreter’s House. He won the Kent & Sussex Poetry Competition (2018); and Battered Moons (2016). YouTube clips: www.youtube.com www.youtube.com