Thank you to all who participated. We all so enjoyed reading your poems and many brought us to tears. Thank you all for your gifts.
AND THE WINNERS ARE.....
First place winner:
Repairing (Pay for Your Food)
A great Artist created the plains. Took the fiberstuff of the universe and through the spindle of time
Created beautiful threads
Fragrant threads of sweetgrass
Tough threads of siena brown bison
Melodious threads of the meadowlark
Gold threads of sunlight
Threads as numerous as the stars
And wove them into the seasons
Looped them into each other
Each thread a note
Every thread in harmony
A great symphony
rolling and laughing and balanced
The Artist wove in people and said it was good.
And the People said, this is good we are here.
And the Artist asked, if I allow you to weave, will you let the World unravel?
No. We will weave ourselves in your Work.
Our thread intertwines with the bison
Our thread sings with the birds
Our thread runs with the wind
Our thread dances with the grass
We will respect and honor your Work.
For a time, there was balance
All the colors were in
And another folk came.
They loved the work of their hands.
They wanted to be artists.
were afraid of the Hunger and the Cold and the Unknown.
But they were enlightened! They studied the World!
Science and Culture and Technology and Efficiency
They took the threads from the World
Pulled hard and pulled fast
And starting weaving their own tapestry
The original pattern disintegrating
And their was great struggle
When you work against the World
And the Newcomers
Struggle, Struggle
Build and Shovel
Iron and Coke
Railroad and Rifle
Homestead and Manifest Destiny
Cowboys and Indians
Blood red thread on the prairie.
The World Unraveling
Let’s get to work
If you don’t work, you won’t survive long out here.
Struggle, Struggle, Toil and Trouble
Sod house burn, blizzard blow and cattle stumble
A colorblind mismatch
Prairie Madness dressed in Calico
Braided blond hair on a belt
Retaliation and Hatred and Fear
They shredded the Bison thread with Remingtons and Sharps and Springfields
Tongues and Hides
Blood red thread on the prairie.
Weave our work, avoid the Hunger
Keep the best meat
Waste, Decay, and Flies
Empty eye socket skulls on trains
To the east
To be ground into bonedust for the fields
Plows cut the land with scissorlike precision
With scissorlike precison, the rifles cut the First People.
Blood red thread on the prairie.
Only our work must survive
Take those who wish to oppose it
And place them in camps
Let us make them like us
In our image
Give them culture and religion.
Now that is proper.
The Black Hills are not for sale.
Let us take the best meat.
And the gold.
They are not like us.
We want to be the Artist
We create to destroy
We are creative in our destruction
Tractors cut up the threads of grass
And replace with wheat
The Work slumps
Glory, glory, glory
More wheat, more corn, more profit
Grind the bones, spread them on the land
Turn them into food
Don’t you know there is a war?
The work unravels
People are out of work
No work, no food
And dust
A thread unleashed
No longer held by the grasses
Dust in lungs
In throats
Steal the sun and our hope
Steel our souls for
The Hunger comes
And we fear
Do you see the ghosts?
What ghosts?
Their ghosts, the ones we tried to make in our image.
Ghosts in the dust, the strangling dust, the starving dust
Sandy Creek, Wounded Knee
A beautiful Dream that died.
We grow the corn to feed our cars
And our cars poison the planet
We grow the corn to feed our animals
our barns packed to the brim
ammonia and antibiotics
Our animals poison the planet
Judge a society by how it treats the least
Slaughterhouse shock and confusion and pain
They suffer for our Hunger
Pesticide-Promised efficiency, increased yields
More fertilizer, increased yields
Milk the land for all she has
Buy chemicals to make up for what the crops took
But the topsoil is dripping away
Manure runoff into streams
Dead zones in the Mississippi Delta
Beware the Agricultural/Industrial Complex
For the few, trips to exotic locales in private jets
if you buy enough brand name GMO seed
Ones who take the best meat.
A small rebellion, a small repair, and unraveling of the work
Your own work is hard to unravel
The World turns to face the Artist
A herd of bison
Eating wild grass
With meadowlarks.
Sage and Sacrifice, no slaughter.
Blood on the prairie.
Efficiency. Simplicity. Harmony.
Circumvent the complex, cut the middlemen
But only the rich may currently eat
and absolve themselves of the System
Capitalism
The worst economic system except every other system
Biding my time funding R&D
Funding a beautiful dream
Waiting for this Wild Idea
to spread like Wild Fire
on the prairie.
Judge a society by how it treats the least.
Pine Ridge Reservation Average Lifespan- 48 years old.
Pine Ridge Reservation Average Income- $6,286
One in Three Native American Women has been raped.
Look to your left
Look to your right
One of you
Rise up! Rise up!
Do you let this sit in your guts like the rocks that cover graves?
Do you let this sit in the back of your throat, in your mouth, like the sick-sour before you vomit?
Do you sit as the robbers beat your Neighbor, and leave him for dead on the road of life?
Will we always be the ones who take the best meat?
What do we do?
Pay for your food.
What.
Pay for your food.
The system makes it as cheap as it can.
The dollar hides the costs.
The costs we just covered
I don’t pay for Bison meat
I pay for beauty
I pay for harmony
I pay for peace
I pay for justice
I pay for dignity
I pay for jobs for Lakota
I pay for health
I pay for a revolution
If I am what I eat, I want to be these.
Like arrows we spring forth from our parents
Beyond the horizon we go
Small ones in the wild grasses, young men soon to be.
Our hope in future’s past.
When our eyes fail to see, and our ears no longer hear.
Our children are what we have.
Leave them with
birdsong beauty hope
In the World of Bison and Grass and People
Rachel H April 27, 2022
Second place winner:
What I Want 2022
What I wantIs the character of four seasons intact
Stewardship of our world based on fact
Slow food, from my own hands and loam
And the pure places where buffalo roam
Bequeathing my child nature to admire
Just the things all parents desire
Oh, how I ache for
What I want.
Wind pushes across prairie.
Grasses rustle.
Prairie dogs ripple.
The sacred buffalo steps to the beat of Earth.
Clouds walk through open sky.
Crisp air lulls coneflower upward.
A score of interconnected notes,
As it should be.
———sacred music.
Lorilei Lebruska
Congratulations to all! One of our fabulous customer service team members will be reaching out to award your prize! Thank you all!
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It's National Poetry Month, so it's time to bring out your inner poet for our annual Freestyle Poetry Contest! And... this year we are offering three prizes! Here's how our contest works: Submit your original poem in the comment section below by noon, Wednesday April 27th. Our panel of judges will deliberate and select their favorite three poems and the winners will be announced on National Great Poetry Reading Day, Thursday, April 28th.
Your poem must include the word bison or buffalo to qualify. Staff, affiliated partners and published poets are encouraged to participate, but cannot be considered for a winning placement.
This years prizes are:
First Place Winner will receive a $100.00 Buffalo Meat Certificate!
Second & Third Place Winners will each receive a $50.00 Buffalo Meat Certificate!
To start you off this year, we offer you this poem as a little inspiration. Good luck to all!
A Poem from the Grass
I bend in the prairie wind, but do not break.
If you plow me up, my heart will ache.
I am an ocean of grass, with roots that run deep.
Holding carbon in the soil, where it will safely keep.
I am fertile, I am life.
Why kill me and cause strife.
By filling the the air with CO2,
our children will be stuck with an environmental IOU.
My grasslands offer shelter and a home,
for wildlife that crawl, slither, fly & roam.
Along with a buffet of diverse healthy nourishment,
just in case you need a bit of encouragement.
So promise me that you will protect,
and treat our earth mother with respect.
The rain, sun and buffalo will keep me strong,
and in turn they can feed you and help you live long.
60 comments
Give room while they roam
Give land for their home
Our bison, freed
Our prairies, restored
Give room.
A Wild Idea
A road trip through fly over states
My Midwest childhood home
Infinite fields stretched taut
A canvas of corn, grains, and beans
A bottomless pit of wide-open spaces
Hay bales depressing the freshly cut earth
Sunflowers hanging their heads under grey skies
Cornstalks bravely awaiting the grim reaper
I used to love the rows and rows of conformity
Crops bending obediently in the hot summer sun
But one day I had a Wild Idea
And I moved to the great American West
A Wild West of expansive prairies, canyons, and mountains
Where a new crop of cowboys and ranchers
Are raising awareness of our fragile ecosystem
As they nurture their herds of buffalo
Their work is their passion; their life; their love
They feed our hearts, our minds, our bodies, our souls
As their bison regenerate the prairie grasslands
my belief in compassionate animal husbandry blooms and grows
These lovers of the Wild West
Are raising their bison in nature
With grass and water and sunshine
What a Wild Idea
BISON DREAMS
We could learn a lesson from the bison
Note; how they are not only an animal, not only
the herd, the group,
they are a way of life
across their relentless wanderings, in this drought filled land
they don’t find water
they make it
Dig up land and grass with their hooves
break through to water
pools for them to sip from
to quench the thirst of a beast that can weigh 2,000 pounds.
and what is left behind?
it becomes
a way for the birds to drink
silver pools,
cool mirrors
on their way, their path, their Bison-made
migration
if only we could migrate
how can these whisper-thin bladesfollow the trail of silver
recollect our thoughts
reaffirm our beliefs
on a golden plain
on a recreation
on a
migration
on the grass these animals eat
these golden strands
like hair
like thread on a loom
the thread that winds and pulls and holds together a land
by being a source
a source of food and energy and life
how much of this thin-bladed,
nutrient
low
vegetable
would we have to eat to fuel even an hour of our life
our hour
an hour of screens and likes
subscribe here,
post here,
tell me what you think
how much would we need to consume to fuel even an hour of our screen-consuming
and these shaggy kings,
these bison
regal in furry finery
eat only this to fuel a movement of a herd
Miles and miles and miles of movement
fueled by green-gold blades
each herd containing beasts of all gender’s, ages,
weighing at least-
500 pounds each
500 pounds each
how much grass would it take to fuel even 10 of these monsters
for the miles they walk
the weather and wind and hardship they endure
and still they survive
this topsy turvy math problem
they determine, shape and control the destiny of the grass
and in a grassland
the grass counts for a lot
so they become a way of life for more than
just the birds
and what about us
how did we,
us two-legged
ambitious
know-it-alls
react to this grand beast?
For years we hunted these bison
but not with malice
with respect
and gratefulness
and need
need for this animal
the way it transformed this land’s delicate grass
into the meat, the fur, the bones we needed
to be,
quite literally,
the bones of this society
And it garnered our respect for this ability
this unique power to hold together
this ecosystem
this savannah
this way of life
And then our ways changed
we took
and stole
and destroyed
this land, this home
for an urbanized world
for lonely patches of forsaken land with “toxic” signs and fences
so can we go back?
can we turn back the clock
reverse our world
trade our ways for bison?
not the animal
but the way of life
the way of the Sarsi and the Blackfoot
the Arapaho
the Lakota?
And others, too many to name?
The way of conservationists and protesters
the people who see our ways and dream of change
who change other’s dreams?
can we not steal
as humans do,
but instead hold together,
create,
be a way of life for the world
as the bison are?
That’s a question I’ve already answered for myself.
Have you?
POEM The Buffalo The Buffalo live’s wild and free, on the fine prairie.It’s theirs Home.The Buffalo relaxing and roaming around.Let the Buffalo live theirs life, don’t cause a strife.The Buffalo have lived there for so long.Buffalo meat will keep you strong.All Buffalo is lovely, some Buffalo it’s white and Holy.It’s theirs destiny, listen to theirs melody. The Buffalo is perfect, show the Buffalo Respect…
Heavenly Greetings The Holy Poet Bjørn Stuverød. Stuveladden
Bison, bison, you beasts,
You’re such tasty feasts,
And your grazing is amazing.
Birds and people thank you!
Bison, bison, shaggy coats,
Cinnamon babies to boast!
Keep on growing, you’re showing
That Nature knows best.
Bison, bison, your meat
It is such a treat.
Leaner, not meaner,
And that means a lot.
“WHY” why do they have to burn all the pretty leaves and let the smoke blow high into the sky it’s a shame that all the colors come out in the fall and then we will take them all and then burn them till their all black and and let the smoke blow high as they are waving goodbye as they float up to the sky
A Time For Reconnection
We’ve been away, we’ve been apart,
And in some ways the gulf seems unbridgeable.
A yawning, gaping, hollow void between.
You’ve always been there, will be there, can be accessed at will
Unless that’s suddenly, irreversibly no longer true.
Taken for granted at peril.
The world has changed, and yet (of course) it’s still just the same.
The water still flows, the grass still grows, the sun still blazes, the bison still grazes
and enriches the prairie with his tread,
and his wallow,
and his dung,
and his frolicking play.
Taken for granted at peril.
The time has come to reconnect, you and I
to enrich one another in myriad, knowable and unknowable ways
like the bison has reconnected with the prairie
even though he never truly left at all…
Buffalo-Spangled Prairie
(Tto the tune of Star-Spangled Banner)
Oh see the grass nod
By the quiet stream side,
Where young gold bison calves
Complain at their new weaning.
Whose broad skulls and bright bones,
So serene in moonlight?
Who once o’er the wide plains
Were so thund’rously streaming?
And the sunset’s orange glare,
Shock of light in the air,
Gives proof through twilight,
That our hope is still there!
Oh say does that
Buffalo nation yet roam
O’er a land that is free
And is their rightful home?
Baby Buffalo so small
Look at the little guy roam
Make sure he doesn’t fall
Because he has to make it home!
New Calf Haiku
Calves on shaky legs
their mommas encourage them
while dads protect them
Newborn Buffalo
Dawn of Life in the Prairie
Nourishing the Earth.
When Buffaloes Think
When Buffaloes think
They think about stink
The sweet of the creek
The new of the calf
The poo at their feet
The people they meet
Who don’t think about
Stink
When buffaloes think
They think about screech
They think about howl
And hoot
And peep
They think about roar
The thunder they see
The ATVs they follow
All the loud sounds
The people don’t hear
When buffaloes
Think
Is time on the wing,
flying away with my life?
An eagle or a dove, death,
piercing the chosen moment
like a knife with a will of its own,
soaring home,
dead reckoning,
straight to the heart.
I wish we could start over again,
but only if, knowing when
the knife would strike,
we could harness flight,
ration time,
and like the buffalo,
roam wild to the end.
Nature’s Symphony
Wind pushes across prairie.
Grasses rustle.
Prairie dogs ripple.
The sacred buffalo steps to the beat of Earth.
Clouds walk through open sky.
Crisp air lulls coneflower upward.
A score of interconnected notes,
As it should be.
———sacred music.
Cinnamon bison babies
Sprinkled across the prairie
And the world delights.