From Certain Footprints Found at Laetoli (2013)

From Certain Footprints Found at Laetoli Charles Martin (bio) 1. We may imagine they still stroll along,Singing, perhaps, their wordless little song, The female smaller, maybe, than the male,And yet another with them on the trail That leads them either to, or back from, water.The child, who may be this pair's son or daughter, As though to measure up to herself grown,Steps into footprints that are not her own. Their tracks, laid down three million years ago,Abruptly end in eighty feet or so, The record of their outing being keptBy the volcanic ash in which they stepped, Heel before toe, as they went on their way,Doing what they might do on any day. And if the course they chose wanted correction?Their path extends in only one direction. 2. Their path extends in only one direction,And etched into its interrupted section Are indications by which we discoverSizes and shapes, lengths of stride, whatever [End Page 26] Aspects successive footprints may reveal:A depression in the far side of a heel Shows that the female carries extra weightOn one hip, altering her normal gait: What but an infant can be made of this?—And then, abruptly, something seems amiss: She halts, pauses and turns left: does she senseA difference that makes a difference? Her momentary doubt is one we share(Though without knowing what has stopped her there) Till she continues. We watch while they recedeBefore us now as signs we've learned to read. 3. Before us now, as signs we've learned to readInto and out of (it is they who lead And we who follow) haltingly, to traceThe lineaments of their unhurried pace, Our feet stumbling as theirs impressThe warm ash with recovered carelessness, Heel before toe, heel before toe, untilThe trail is discontinued: nada, nil— Since they were there once, once almost in sight,If not quite ever there, no, ever not quite, We may imagine that these four continueAt the same pace on to another venue; And at that moment they all disappear,And what is left of them found only here On the path they ventured out upon and quitAs soon as their footsteps had created it. [End Page 27] 4. As soon as their footsteps had created it,Rain and another ashfall on the site Turned into muck that turned into cementAnd made their casual passage permanent In printed code that no one had an eye for,Or mind, until much later, to decipher. So could the path be said then to exist?—Not till a young paleontologist, Out of a welter of competing spoors(Hyenas, wildcats, rhinos and wild boars) Saw, in apparent isolation, whatCould only be the print of someone's foot, And then a set of footprints that extendedFor eighty feet till suddenly it ended (And with it closed off what had been revealed)At the beginning of another field. 5. At the beginning of another field,Behind him, the female burdened with a child, And at his feet, the one who sometimes triesHis footprints on for size, Impatient to get on with it, insteadOf waiting while he probes what lies ahead For any sign of a better-than-even chance,The odd turn that will favor their advance, Some reassurance I cannot imagine.Whether or not a counter-sign is given, [End Page 28] They must soon realize that if they lingerHere, they will put their issue into danger; From now on unrecorded in the dust,The four of them will go forth as they must, And then (if not before) will slip out fromWhatever I can say for sure about them. 6. Whatever I can say for sure about them,We, like as not, would not be here without them, Without their having set out on their wayAt a certain hour of a certain day Some three and one half million years agoOn a quest whose purpose we can never know That brought them here, where, without meaning toThey left some traces of their passing through. These traces I have...