Spear shafts splintering beneath its collapsing hulk, <br />the mastodon crashed to the earth, <br />roared its final lament and fell silent. <br /> <br />Shouts echoed across the ravine. <br />Dark-haired Clovis hunters converged: <br />stripping the hide, <br />carving the flesh. <br /> <br />Others circling the carcass, <br />traced broken shafts to flint; <br />gathering them for tomorrow's hunt - <br />retrieving all save one. <br /> <br />A triumphal fire hissed and snapped, <br />hurling heat and smoke <br />high into the mid–day sky. <br /> <br /> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * <br /> <br />The archaeologist knelt to the ground. <br />Heart racing, he scraped dirt from flint, <br />brushed away millennia of dust <br />and raised the projectile to the sun shouting, <br />'Clovis point! ' <br /> <br />'Clovis point' - a revelation in the dust: <br />found inches from the bones of its prey. <br />Khaki and blue jean clad hunters gathered quickly <br />to read the epic written in flint and bone: <br />mastodon and Clovis united by the point of a spear.<br /><br />Robert Charles Howard<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mastodon-hunt/
