i.



you are the weight of the world before us,

a living storm; a slow earthquake

of muscle; of mane.

your hump, a ridge of forgotten mountains,

your horns, the crescent moons of a sky we shattered.



we called you buffalo to soften the loss,

but you were always tatanka:

the first currency, the first cathedral,

the first breath of the plains.



ii.



they shot you from trains, for sport, for hide,

for the joy of watching you fall.

your ribs became fence posts;

your skulls grinning trophies in parlors.



the prairie learned to weep without you.

the grasses forgot how to be grazed just right,

the rivers forgot the rhythm of your crossing.

you were the keeper, the gardener, the wild priest—

and we burned your altar to the ground.



iii.



now, only fragments remain:

a few herds in dusty parks,

a scattering of bones in museum drawers,

a child’s drawing on a reservation wall:

a shaggy beast with kind, tired eyes.



but when the wind stills at dusk,

i swear i hear the old thunder:

the thud of a thousand bodies,

the crack of hooves on frozen earth,

the low of a bull defending his world.



iv.



what does it mean to miss a creature

who was never meant to be missed?

you were not ours to take.

you were the land’s first voice,

its oldest prayer,

its most patient grief.



so let the prairie rise again.

let the dust remember your name.

let the herds return

but not as ghosts,

but as the storm they were always meant to be.