Farming Buffalo Land

Indians! There are no

Indians left now but me.

—Sitting Bull

Did you know this when you were young

cutting arrows before first coup,

turning stone to points

in your buffalo-skin workhouse,

then whistling deer to sleep each night?

Or did you learn it in fine anger

fighting the white man with his own rifle

at Rosebud or Little Bighorn,

keeping promises you were born with?

Or did it come to you one night in a gray

vision at Grand River when you were old

and weak, forced to farm buffalo land

your fathers held sacred,

their voices rising forever like the condor

across the great plains of your spirit?

The Web Projects of Sondra Ball and Mario Cavallini