Fortuitous Poem by Saul Bellow (age 89)

I don’t do much of anything these days
And I spend much of my time indoors.

By far my pleasantest diversion
Is to play with Rosie, now four years old.

It seems to me that my parents
Wanted me to grow up in a hurry
And that I resisted, dragging my feet.
They (my parents, not my feet)
Needed all the help they could get.
They were forever asking
“What does the man say?”
And I would translate for them
Into heavy-footed English.
That didn’t help much either.
The old people were as ignorant
Of English as they were of Canadian French.

We often stopped before a display
Of children shoes. My mother coveted for me
A pair of patent leather sandals
With an elegantissimo strap.
I finally got them—I rubbed them
With butter to preserve the leather.

This was when I was six or seven years old,
A little older than Rosie is now.

Amazing how it all boils down
To a pair of patent-leather shoes.