My fathers had spoken of this
White Mammoth that few had seen.
I thought it was a legend like
The grass that they said once was green.

They had painted stories of it
In the cold caves that we called home.
They told my wife and child such tales
While I went hunting beasts alone.

I sat fashioning a new spear;
My prior kill had destroyed the last.
I’d be crippled like these men who
Tell tales, if I had not been fast.

The flint I clacked made feeble sparks;
May they take weakness from my spear.
I only wanted strength to stay,
For this weapon should know no fear.

As I left the tales did begin.
‘Tis well to talk around the heat
About such meaningless legends,
While I freeze hunting for our meat.

I pulled the tiger hide in close.
He rued the day he’d ventured here.
I’m as grateful for his warmth as
I am for my unfailing spear.

The snow blew around me like smoke.
It was just as pleasant to breathe.
It froze in my beard and nostrils.
The wind was heard to fiercely seethe.

I descended from the mountain.
The cold my skin numbed and caressed.
I journeyed o’er the glacial plain
To where the mammoths made their nest.

I looked back on my footprints that
The snow was working to erase.
But instead of seeing my tracks,
A different set was in its place.

They looked just like a mammoth’s tracks.
It seemed like the beast was alone.
How had he passed so close to me
Without making his presence known?

I turned back from the nest I sought.
This beast would be easier prey.
I’d need the herd to separate,
Which might mean that I’d wait all day.

The snow hid the woolly figure;
I pursued its tracks stealthily.
I’d need the vantage of surprise,
And not just because it would flee.

These beasts were worse than a tiger,
And their pale tusks are longer, too.
The tiger might attack for meat,
But just one stomp could not crush you.

My brothers three and I once went
To proudly hunt a mammoth herd.
But I returned with what remained.
My parents never said a word.

After all, that’s just how it works.
We live. We eat. We breed. We die.
Sometimes we warm ourselves by fire.
We’re wounded, but we rarely cry.

What good is it to fight ‘gainst death?
We hunt here, and there we shall hunt.
We’ll eat the spoils of mastodon flesh,
And at our wives we will still grunt.

What figure’s that far up ahead?
Can that mammoth be made of snow?
Wasn’t the beast just a legend?
Should I turn around or follow?

I thought of what glory would come
From bringing his hide to the cave.
I’d be the most renowned hunter.
My legend would live past the grave.

I thought of the story I’d tell
Of how fearsome the battle was.
‘Twould be nice to share something rare
With my young hunter with peach fuzz.

I closed the distance between us;
The blizzard occluded the sound.
I raised my spear in victory.
I prepared for a vicious bound.

But as I stepped, my food slid through
The hard packed snow and ice below.
Black tar seized me and I struggled
For freedom. But beneath the snow,

Black tendrils waited to trap me.
My spear was wrested from my hand.
I sank more the more I struggled.
Would I reach the snow-covered land?

And in the middle of my fight,
I was interrupted by a stare.
Tusks and trunks framed two beastly eyes
Living in a snowdrift of hair.

‘How is it that this beast,’ I mused,
‘Doesn’t sink down into the tar?’
He looks at me with such intent
As I study him with wonder.

He seems to float above the ground,
He doesn’t have a trace of fright.
I recall few have lived to tell
Of seeing this mammoth so white.

The legends say it was no beast,
But rather an evil spirit.
Nor tale nor warning did I heed:
Hunters die who do not fear it.

Sight proved what I’d disdained, but ’twas
Too late to be saved by belief.
With the exception of death’s rest,
For dying there is no relief.

My spear broke free from the pitch muck.
In a second’s shimmering span
The mammoth morphed its appearance.
It was like me. It was a man.

I recognized his face from when
Melted water had shone me mine.
I was petrified in the tar;
Terror had firm grasp of my spine.

He grabbed my spear with a smug smile.
“I’ll be a good man to your child,”
It said, as it turned, heading home.
I fought again just like a wild

Creature, but I just sank and sank.
The last sight I managed to see
Was my body walking from me
To deceive my dear family.

Something in my black breast told me
‘Twould be a generation more
Before some hunter’d chance to see
The cursed white mammoth anymore.