Caller of the Buffalo

Whenever the summer-singed plains,
Past my car window
Heave and fall like the flanks of trail-weary cattle,
When the round-backed hills go shouldering down
To drink of western rivers,
And dust, like ceremonial smoke,
Goes up from the long-dried wallows,
Then I remember the Caller of Buffalo.

Then I think I see him,
Head feathers slant in the wind,
Shaking his medicine robe.
From the buttes of Republican River,
At Pawnee bluffs
Offering sacred smoke to the Great White Buffalo.
Then at dawn, between jiggling curtains, I wake
To the star-keen note of his deer-shin whistle.

O Caller of Buffalo!
Hunt no more on the ancient traces
Pale and emptied of grong as a cast snake-skin;
Come into my mind and hunt the herding thoughts
The White Buffalo
Of the much desired places.
Come with your medicine making,
O Caller of Buffalo!
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