at pine ridge
Come with me where the buffalo go
Into the violet-sprung sloughs reeking with spring
To the places where grasses threaded with the beads I lost
Last winter
Whisper and sing:
This is my place, this is my place,
Is it yours?
High-tail it beyond the fence,
Past the middling kids with the cans,
The dead-eyed big ones and their dads.
Skip by the schoolhouse and run away, run away!
The best is over here.
Point your nose next to mine,
Listen for the wolf-trail.
Buffalo wolves: bigger, darker, the brute side of here;
My grandfather says his grandfather told him
Of the amber eyes that tracked the wagons
And dared to lick the fires.
Tip-toe toe-tip ti to
With me, through this place
Where the bones of our fellows lie
Unquiet yet in their frozen shrouds.
Feet-eat the ground,
And make for the cottonwood.
Gopher-scrabbling, let’s den in the dirt at its roots,
Trace peregrines through the green filter of leafy armour
And, when night closes day,
Sleep with the songbirds in its branches.