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Thursday, June 20, 2024

LEGEND OF WHITE BUFFALO CALF WOMAN

by Joanne De Simone Reynolds


Reported birth of rare white buffalo calf in Yellowstone park fulfills Lakota prophecy: “The birth of this calf is both a blessing and warning. We must do more,” said Chief Arvol Looking Horse, the spiritual leader of the Lakota, Dakota and the Nakota Oyate in South Dakota, and the 19th keeper of the sacred White Buffalo Calf Woman Pipe and Bundle… Lakota legend says about 2,000 years ago—when nothing was good, food was running out and bison were disappearing—White Buffalo Calf Woman appeared, presented a bowl pipe and a bundle to a tribal member, taught them how to pray and said that the pipe could be used to bring buffalo to the area for food. As she left, she turned into a white buffalo calf. “And some day when the times are hard again,” Looking Horse said in relating the legend, “I shall return and stand upon the earth as a white buffalo calf, black nose, black eyes, black hooves.” A similar white buffalo calf was born in Wisconsin in 1994 and was named Miracle, he said. —AP, June 14, 2024. More photos by Erin Braaten here at YouTube.


When a bison calf appears white-furred
On a patch of yellow stone prairie 
The People know it is mine   Me:
Dark-haired/Dark-eyed 
When first I came to them   Yes:
Miracle   Yes:
Sacred-birth leucism   Rarest
Of rare   Lakota-blessed prayer   Grass-
Rolled   And a pipe I left   Change
Among the geysers/Great
Change meaning What most excites
Returns   Like hunger   Just totally totally
Floored a woman says in a baseball cap:
White   Holding a camera: a long-range lens
 
 
Joanne De Simone Reynolds would like to acknowledge Nadia Colburn, of Align Your Story, and Tom Daley, both of Cambridge, Massachusetts, for their indispensable writing workshops; Doug Holder, of Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene, for his ongoing support; and Susan Richmond, poet and children's book author, who coaxed Ms Reynolds into Plein Air Poetry at Old Frog Pond in Harvard, Massachusetts, a collaboration of poets that lasted ten years and produced as many, beautiful, chapbooks. She is grateful to all.