I Think Of My Buffalo

"oh give me a home

where the buffalo roam

where the deer and the antelope play.

where seldom is heard

a discouraging word

and the skies are not cloudy all day."

Home on the Range, (Traditional American folk song)

to Antoine St. Exupery

(because of the sheep drawing, etc.)

and to Charles M. Portis, author of True Grit,

(still unacknowledged as The Great American Novel)

I think of my buffalo;

the one I saw some years ago

in a field, alone,

somewhere in the Dakotas.

there must have been several of them

but my buffalo looked at me very specifically

and, of course, shaggily.

I carried him with me after that oh

not in my pocket.

I carried his buffaloness.

secretly from that day.

I am very small.

and every now and then create typos.

it is good to have a buffalo

in these cases.

I know many others may come forward to say

they have a buffalo too.

and tell me where's he grazing and a thing or two

I know they won't think I know.

for instance, they snuffle.

their heads are huge.

they don't play in the snow.

(the buffalo, not the others)

they pride themselves they are the only ones

who know how to have a buffalo

and being so short and a girl from Arkansas,

what the hell do I know.*

well, I'll tell you since you must be listening to this.

(and thank you).

I've got a color wheel from 1961 the kind that rotates when

you plug it in; that turns the aluminum Christmas tree

red, blue, yellow, green radiantly and in that order.

the whole thing.

when it thunders-

or when I'm homesick-

or finished with the Great Books-

my buffalo does the same thing,

completely on its own

without even one tuna-fish sandwich.

and not only at Christmas.

mary angela douglas 10 june 2014 

*dear reader: their words, not mine.