In my dream a few nights back, there was a great bison that came upon me. Aggressive, but not with intent to impale. He had a firmness in his eyes as to tell me he might if I moved too quick, if I did not ease his qualm with my palm on his head, he might ruin the whole room. I was briefly scared, but the eyes of this great animal showed the same fear and at once I guided myself away and let him be. Let him find solace in the corner of the dark room. You were that great beast, I realized as I awoke. The eyes and the bruteness of his head. The caress and the love I deeply wanted to give, the desire to be chosen in the rash moment of fear. All this reminded me of you, yes, but the sway of his walk. His gentleness and his grandness, all these were you.
On the dam that held back as much water as I felt this fall, you and I walked. It was long and full of cranky indian fishermen and their fisherboys. You were foreign to me then, like a fading photo I wouldn’t take out of the frame on the wall where the sun rises each morning. You knew it too, I could see in your eyes. They looked off down the corridor of the dam and along the water seeking something you weren’t going to find. They were looking far off and were cloudy, all at once.
I hope you are on the prairie now, grazing and taking time. You never should have come into that room, dear Bison, you did not belong there. Your eyes fouled with stage lights and the blackness of the corner you hid in and confused at all the noise. Dear Bison I hope you run toward the storm and arrive on the other side, sunset pulling towards a horizon that tells of the ocean. I hope your eyes are clear and hopeful.
To sleep in the warmth of your fur, dear Bison, like the pelt on your family couch. There is no where to sleep so surely now. I will rarely think of you, as one rarely thinks of the emptiness of the great plain until they are confronted with the winter white expanse under a cerulean sky and brought to an emotional impasse. In these moments I will miss you like I miss all the Bison, and it will bring me to tears. A broken, heaving, God-begging sob.
The plain remains empty, the clouds pass over.
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