Monday, February 4, 2008

A post for Dave
















The Flower-fed Buffaloes

The flower-fed buffaloes of the spring
In the days of long ago,
Ranged where the locomotives sing
And the prairie flowers lie low:--
The tossing, blooming, perfumed grass
Is swept away by the wheat,
Wheels and wheels and wheels spin by
In the spring that still is sweet.
But the flower-fed buffaloes of the spring
Left us, long ago.
They gore no more, they bellow no more,
They trundle around the hills no more:--
With the Blackfeet, lying low.
Withe the Pawnees, lying low,
Lying low.


By Vachel Lindsay, from Anthology of Children's Literature, 4th ed. (Houghton Mifflin, 1970)

Western Kansas, Albert Bierstadt, 1875. Image via Wikimedia Commons