A few years back I walked a burn
the kind foresters call "controlled".
It cleared the woods of brush and fern
leaving the woods' floor bare and bold.

Most of the ground was blushing red
(from being clay, or being bare?)
all undergrowth unburnt was dead
no sign of deer, wild hog or hare.

Along a ridge where quartz lay white
I chanced to spot a stone spear head
but what really caught my sight
this point was gray as weathered lead.

For this point was made of slate
where there is no slate around
and this set me to deliberate
as I surveyed white quartz filled ground.

It was of the type called "Clovis"
defined by its shape and style.
I drew my breath with a deep hiss
for they'd been gone a Long, Long while.

Long before the Cherokee
ever roamed a hill or hollow
the Clovis lived then.....ceased to be
allowing later tribes to follow.

Well beyond how many? thousand years
and in some far and lonely glade
when mammoth roamed instead of deer
this point came here perhaps by trade.

We pride ourselves on things that last
our dams, statues and asphalt roads
our buildings and bridges, concrete cast
porcelain sinks even commodes.

But this little stone spear head
has lasted through all history's pages.
When We are all forgotten and dead
what will we leave that lasts such ages?