Ancestral Footprints

They once lived in these places, the Anasazi,

in the lands we now call New Mexico, Colorado,

Utah and Arizona.

Anasazi, a native civilization of men, women,

children, the warriors, the potters and weavers,

the hunter gatherers, the young and elderly,

leaving their petroglyphs etched and painted

in caves and on the cliffs of antiquity.

The Anasazi, 200 BC to 1500 AD, gone now

back to the land, evaporated with but a trace.

Where on Earth did they go? To seek water at

the source, evolved or assimilated into

another culture which invaded and came to

take their place?

The Anasazi, without a photograph or word,

without CNN or MSNBC or the local news,

leaving chards of their existence to uncover

from the sands of time. Before you and I, pre-

dating Edison, Henry Ford, Babe Ruth, all of

them, the Pueblo cultures, the Anasazi, “An-

cestral Puebloan.”

And we, not heeding our lesson from history, anthro-

pogists will one day discover the gibberish of Facebook

Twitter and Snapchat, will live with the irreversible

results of our excessive carbon footprint. And littered

in our legacy seas of non-biodegradables, our descen-

dants shall find themselves the hapless heirs to the toxic

environmental wasteland we so carelessly left behind.

                                     -30-

Chris Hanch 7-9-2020