“When the Bison Passed”
I was a child when I first saw the bison.
Not in a dream. Not in a book.
But with my own eyes, across the wide grassland.
A dark mountain moving under the morning sun.
Slow.
Steady.
Silent.
My grandfather stopped walking.
He took off his hat, and placed his hand over his heart.
I asked him why.
He said,
"Because that is not just an animal.
That is the memory of the land."
He told me the bison once fed whole villages.
Not just with meat—
but with meaning.
Its hide warmed our children.
Its bones became flutes, needles, stories.
And its spirit taught us patience,
persistence,
presence.
Years later,
after war, fences, and forgetting,
I saw another bison.
Only one.
It looked at me.
Not with fear,
but with something older than anger.
Something like forgiveness.
And I wept.
Because somehow,
even after all we had done,
the bison still remembered us.
Still walked the earth
like it belonged to something bigger.
And maybe,
just maybe,
we still do too.
