Sioux Warrior's Last Buffalo Hunt Poem by Rob Clarke

Sioux Warrior's Last Buffalo Hunt



Ho! Buffalo brother
How sad and sorry we must look
To these few folk gathered here.
See them push and jostle for a glimpse
Of regality so lately lost.
Earning our daily bread,
We keep soul and flesh as one
By pretending to be ourselves
While the spirit in us slowly dies
Never counting up the cost.

The Miller Boys count coup
Because I hunt you one last time.
They've sprung me from the white stockade!
Now I'm riding in some soulless, white man's thing
Around the ring of One-O-One.
You stand there, motionless for a moment,
Not knowing what to do.
Maybe you are simply lost in prairie dreaming;
Endless sky, dry grass and dust,
The great migration just begun.

When my grandfather hunted yours
Our people were too many for us to count.
Your sea of hooves ground the plains to powder.
We asked the Great Spirit for deliverance.
He heard our prayer and sent us you.
But now we are laid low
By whiskey, bullets and bad planning.
Your kind are nearly gone.
My kind have no home left to fight for;
The white man's burden nearly through.

Come now, buffalo brother!
We must not keep these human beings waiting!
They have bartered their Silver Eagles
To see old Yellow Hair's Destiny
Kill you one last time.
How I wish that they had loaded
This carbine with real bullets.
Then we would no longer suffer this indignity,
But, their bullets are as blank as my heart.
So, buffalo brother, do your job and I'll do mine.

Robert Clarke
Copyright 1995

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Cantrell Dicky 17 January 2006

Very wonderful line, their bullets are as blank as my heart I liked it Dicky Cantrell

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Rob Clarke

Rob Clarke

Canadia - so I must be Canadian!
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