taking a step-back
as the dust settles
from a cliff collapse
revealing three-hundred-and-thirteen-million-year-old
fossilized tracks
described in a cold, distant and detached
two shelled-egg-laying animals, passing
at different times
along the slope of a sand dune

upon a telescoping closer,
the prints express, paws in a primal dance
the distinct gait of tetrapods
four legs, step to prance, telling the story of ice-forming
as the norms, then gorges tore
into the unspoken for
and the sky tugged at the shores
raising tides for the deep to climb
fins to limbs,
as sharks roamed from the ocean floor
to meet the beasts upon the plains
to tear apart a fallen star
and set their prints with claws and pads
raptured in a primal dance