Footprints

Two companion poems

Footprints

“You leave no footprints. No one is watching you, but you’re part of history.”  Lt. Bill Lee–Marine guard at JFK grave at Arlington Cemetery.

City streets,

throngs walking–

some with canes,

joggers, 

soldiers in military stride,

shuffling homeless,

stylish gal, stiletto heels,

button down suit,

uniformed nurses and nuns.

Step by step,

each one puts a foot down.

Track those footsteps,

count them—

beyond counting,

naming them even more

unlikely.

But those who passed

were there,

their steps

as real as if they were

cast in bronze.

They pass by

caught for a moment

then gone—

but each one knows they were there,

however history 

unfolds,

is written down,

or explained.

They hear the word:

“You are that history.”

Footprints-2

Potawatomi and Kickapoo,

Illiniwek and Miami walked their paths

around the swampy, marshy swaths

bordering the lake; Chicago

not even in the realm of dreams.

Paths left by the Ice Age sheets

served them as streets,

ridges raised above the streams,

else they’d have to slog through the muck.

Today those same trails carry us.

We pave over where they have trod. In car and bus,

and diesel powered eighteen wheeler truck,

we roar along their trails; now they 

bear our names: Ogden Street, Milwaukee

Avenue. But though their prints we’ll never see,

they’re here, their history is ours, still today.

(c) Phil Hefner   30 April 2018