SPOILERS : Season 7 Episode 15.
For seven and a half seasons Sam has worn jeans and sneakers, dress uniform, boots and regulation shoes. Then we get the beautiful shot of her in a gorgeous dress and amazing heels...
The Shoe Tree In Winter
The devil's temptation
gnaws away at the soul
seeking places so hollow
in dreams of the night.
She stares at the dull ceiling
as it eats at her heart,
filled with despair,
bereft of all hope.
In her house there are portraits
of family and friends;
of people she'd grown close to;
of those she had lost.
She stares at the dull ceiling
remembering them all;
yet the one by her bedside
torments her the most.
And there is her wardrobe
full of old clothes;
the shoe tree in winter;
cardigans with holes.
But her home once so empty
now rings out with laughter;
his presence no longer
some wistful dark stranger.
She stares at the dull ceiling
of his room on the base,
after all they've not done,
so afraid to go home.
Every time that they part
is the time that she fears;
that their last time is over
and won't ever come back.
He'd seen who she was,
and now what she did;
still they were together,
but he wasn't Jack.
She stares at the dull ceiling
which weighs on her more
than the half-realized hopes
of what wasn't before.
She couldn't have told him;
he could only have guessed,
that the shoes he had bought her
would so perfectly fit.
After years of hard running
it took courage to look
at shoes that were light
and heels that were daring.
Love has no reason,
so tomorrow she'd wear
the shoes he had bought her,
the blessing he'd given.
And with time she knew
that her wardrobe would grow
with frocks and bright dresses
and a shoe tree not bare.
She'd known all along
about temptation and fate;
but this night he was gone,
and she could not resist.
She'd feared that the ceiling
might only reflect
the cold of his loneliness
not the warmth of his heart.
For the Colonel was all
that the ceiling had known;
his emptiness and sorrow
when he didn't go home.
Yet the ceiling looked down
on the Major below;
understanding night wishes
and heart-ache and pain.
A so tearful Major,
wearing nothing but shoes;
the devil's temptation,
was indeed strange.
But shoe trees in winter...
it couldn't explain.
NOTES : Where to begin? The title came first; although where it came from is a mystery. It started out as prose, but a rhythm came along and 90 percent of the original story got hacked away. After dozens of revisions this is what's left. Some of it works; some doesn't. The punctuation is awful, and it could still do with a beta to finish it properly.
