I existed
I was here
At this very spot
More like you than not
I blazed the path for you
Remember me
....Finally, the Associated Press reports a dramatic discovery in the East African nation of Tanzania. Dr. Mary Leakey, while excavating a site in the Laetoli district near the fossil rich Olduvai Gorge, has found a trail of perfectly preserved footprints. The footprints, nearly identical to those of modern humans were found in petrified ash beds estimated to be over three and one half million years old. According to Dr. Leakey, several upright walking hominids left the trails by walking through freshly deposited damp ash from a nearby volcano. The sun baked footprints were evidently covered by more ash and preserved as impressions in stone. Leakey suggests the prints represent a rare and moving glimpse of an individual event in the life of ancestral man. It is thought that such a rare paleontological discovery might lead to even further........
To a 176K sound file of Steps (0:43)
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Part IV
Steps
words - Dennis Bidney; music - "Dawn on the Serengeti" by Graham De Wilde, by permission
Take the earth from an African plain
Revealing one moment from the distant past
In stone no longer hidden from view
Human footprints one day were cast
Walking from south to north
Passing through fresh ash fall
They left their signatures for us to find
Buried treasure paleontal
Science says they passed this way
Three and a half million years ago
And that they walked in the fashion of man
But what they looked like we might never know
Were they of our ancestral family
Going from here to there as would you or I
Pausing, turning, and then moving on
An ancient journey locked in time
Or were they more animal than man
Wandering through the wastelands
With no possible relation to us bright and clever ones
Perhaps we've no connection to artifacts in stone
But ponder on these old, old paths
There's something more here beyond curiosity
An ethereal voice rising from the dust
Speaking with knowing and simplicity
"I'm not so distant as you might think
For I travel the same space you now excavate
Separate only by the gulf of time
As the ages rush by into the infinite
Come, touch these prints, walk in my stead
Be joined to me through unbroken thread
Know that your fate is the same as mine
And you are only one step, one step behind"
What of the thoughts in their minds that day
Their destination unknown
They didn't have the technical safety nets
And couldn't have been more on their own
Trying to survive that hostile world
Not much different from many of us
Separate times and separate trials
It seems the struggle remains continuous
Footprints cast in Laetoli's stone
Did the God of love call these wayfarers his own?
Did we really believe that has been reserved only for us?
And as the ages rush by to the infinite
We are but one step behind.
For we are like the butterfly
Floating for a day
Dreaming it's forever
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