Barefoot all the way
from the embryo
and the drifting sands
where the prints washed away
untold lives ago
you were born to be
one of a number
upholding a larger
company on one
side or the other
always in the infantry
and singular though
at first you were many
balancing alternately
unable to see
where you were going
climbing along yourself
by the numbers in
a pace of your own
and stepping into
new talents positions
memberships bringing
the count down to
eight and four and two
coming in turn to be
less dispensable
half solitary painful
surviving ancestor
heir to the distances
sustain the limbs of friends
you that have borne the world
this far in us all walk on
light on your feet as
the days walk through the days