A Walk Along Forever

                                              The Puebloans gathered
                                              secrets about the nature
                                              of the world and life –
                                              all unknown to us while
                                              hidden through the centuries
                                              in ghostly petroglyphs etched
                                              among the time-frozen trees
                                              and wind-shaven cliffs
                                              of the Petrified Forest - 
                                              a gift of silent testimony.
                                              At Newspaper Rock  
                                              messages were left - 
                                              ancient voices speaking
                                              in its perpetual stone:
                                              “This is how we lived
                                              this is who we were 
                                              this is what we knew -
                                              our lives had meaning
                                              to us beyond whatever
                                              later tribes might imagine.”  
                                              Social media today
                                              echoes the human story
                                              akin to theirs -
                                              using pixels rather than
                                              desert sandstone
                                              to offer quotidian
                                              details of current lives
                                              being shared instantly
                                              across the ether by those
                                              claiming to be modern.