Before you turn your galoshes into flowerpots, walk in them. Slide with them, make the world your flesh and blood. Plow the skies. Before your soul and hair turn white, make sure they have taken on the color of fire.

Your galoshes should always be dirty. I give you a wish, not a curse. Feed them with red soil and load them with calloused hands, warm wood to wear your galoshes, to honor them.

And then say, I, with two pieces of rubber, distinguished myself from the statues and the trees and became a booted eagle, sowed and reaped, bled and sanctified, crawled and flew.

Far from shiny, fanciful shoes. Everything expensive lacks life. Don’t let them wear you on roads of pebbles, rose petals, and rainbows.

In the mountains there is the clearest view. Breathlessness is a blessing. Whatever is tidy and clean does not shine like a pair of eyes.

Walk in your galoshes but also in the galoshes of others. Make sure your stance is a stance for conversation, photography, steaming chestnuts.

And when you finally hang your shoes, you will hear a whispered "thank you" for showing them the journey and making their destination worth taking them out of the packaging without regret.

And you in turn will thank them for protecting your feet from sharp rocks and thorny pricks, from the bad tongues. And together you became a bright shape, your galoshes and you. Light is shaped from wet earth, not from artificial cloudy cement.