What Was Left
       

When the White men came to slaughter
the Buffalo, they only took the tongues and fur,
left behind the rest to rot in the weather.

The old wizened Indian women who came
upon this scene of desolation were ashamed
at what they saw, at the bloody remains

rotting, and the Wolves and Crows circling.
They picked through what was left,
took horn and teeth and bone, dug out

the organ meats, the last to rot,
and sang the thanking songs,
and sprinkled corpse with sage

and dust when no cornmeal was left,
and they smoked the Woman-pipe
and when it was their time to starve

they stripped naked like the Buffalo
and lay down barren in the snow;
this was their sacred letting go.

With what was left of breath,
they sang the tremolo
to honor the Lord of Death.

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