dog days

After dark campfire burns
echoes of futures
collide with times past.
Technology is a carrot
chased from the start.

Obsidian falls in grassy fields
shining under full moon light.
Black glass flakes off
under hammered stones
to reveal projectile points
arrowheads rubbed to perfection
deadly weapons pitched in
notched wooden spears
flint mapped stone— wrapped
tight with sinew strands.
Power in projectile points
that flute out over time as
people adapt to prey and purpose.

At the Anzick Site in Montana,
well maintained staffs
systematically snapped in fours
indicate funerary ritual
buried with bones
carbon dated to a time
that makes decades seem obsolete.

9400 years ago families gathered in Barton Gulch
leaving signs of pastoral existence.
Bone needles scarce in the lithic now,
indicate domesticity.
People tied to place.

Hands, bones, stones
separate meat from flesh.
Goosefoot and prickly pear seed
season meat wrapped in rabbit skin to
roast in charcoal pits blanketed with bulrushes
topped with more fuel.
Dinner is served.

Paleoindian ingenuity uncovered
in mother Earth’s Montana.