"These men [the buffalo hunters]...they are destroying the Indians commissary...Let them kill, skin and sell until the buffalo are exterminated. Then your prairie can be covered with speckled cattle and the festive cowboy who follows the hunter as the second forerunner of an advanced civilization."
Gen. Philip Sheridan, Commander of the Armies of the West, in remarks before the Texas Legislature
I.
The cowboy over ran the plains
driving before him speckled cattle
bovine herds of locust
unbalanced ecosystem
desertification of the plains basin.
We were conquered for a lust of beef.
Bison instinctively understand
what cows will never know
genetic memory tells of the buffalo's superiority
for life on the plains.
Buffalo don't compact the soil
Even distribution of weight
cattle: 24 pounds per square inch
suffocate precious root systems
tendons and ligaments to
hold the earth's body together.
Buffalo people face the blowing snow
oversized head takes the brunt of force
Nipping gingerly at young shoots so as not to
expose their roots
sessile feet penetrating sod
seeking subterranean nourishment.
The tracks of the iron horse
railroad skeleton
creeps westward
like poisonous mist
cutting through our country.
II.
The mChokman
stole land
shot food
destroyed our relationship
then buried our heart.
A war on the psyche.
Buffalo and Indian, kin
treated the same
killed and fenced.
We continue to survive.
Remember brothers and sisters,
in the lust for land and cattle
the mChokman ran us before them like
human herds
Treated us with less dignity than
their precious speckled cows
Remember
that the cowboy, as we know from childhood games
is an enemy.
III.
Remember this,
don't encourage continued american colonialism with each bite
of your McBurger.
don't contribute to the destruction of
indigenous culture, here and abroad.
IV.
The Yanomami
forest land seized
by bulldozer kings
intent on fattening cattle
for a fattening u.s.
remember bite by bite
that beef is
fuel for further exploitation and dislocation.