The buffalo sank into the earth
    when the bountymen came,
    slaughtered for tongues,
    they disappeared whole herds
    hid in caves, shrunken-hearted,
    waiting without grass, hooves
    still in the rock. Rough dark hairs
    rub the walls, bodies jostle for air
    from Grandma Earth's windpipe.

    Pipestone, that soft red rock, some say,
    is the blood of Mother Earth
    is the blood of First People
    is the blood of Mammoth Bison
    where the last herds
    shape-shifted small
    and disappeared.

    Others say they know of a cave
    where tiny bison shuffle and wait--
    near White River, Rosebud, Red Scaffold,
    or Ring Thunder, cave in the Badlands cliffs
    by the river, fossil hoofprints in the shale.

    But I know the Place
    of Emergence: Center
    of All That Is -- this
    time, Wind Cave.

    When we rise up from the earth again
    we will not need the stairs.