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Mastodon Hunt

Spear shafts splintering beneath its collapsing hulk,
the mastodon crashed to the earth,
roared its final lament and fell silent.

Shouts echoed across the ravine.
Dark-haired Clovis hunters converged:
stripping the hide,
carving the flesh.

Others circling the carcass,
traced broken shafts to flint;
gathering them for tomorrow's hunt -
retrieving all save one.

A triumphal fire hissed and snapped,
hurling heat and smoke
high into the mid–day sky.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The archaeologist knelt to the ground.
Heart racing, he scraped dirt from flint,
brushed away millennia of dust
and raised the projectile to the sun shouting,
'Clovis point! '

'Clovis point' - a revelation in the dust:
found inches from the bones of its prey.
Khaki and blue jean clad hunters gathered quickly
to read the epic written in flint and bone:
mastodon and Clovis united by the point of a spear.

poem by Robert Charles Howard
Added by Poetry Lover
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