The Bison

Broad-backed keeper of the plain,

you stand where the wind has nothing to stop it,

shoulders carved from weather,

breath rising like prayer in the cold.

You do not hurry.

You meet the storm head-on,

lowering your head,

moving forward

when others turn aside.

You are not dominance.

You are persistence.

The one who survives

by knowing the land,

by remembering where grass returns

after fire,

after frost.

Your body carries history

scarred hide,

heavy bones,

the memory of slaughter

and survival braided together.

You were nearly erased.

You remained.

Bison, you do not flee hardship.

You walk into it,

knowing that the shortest way through

is straight ahead.

You teach us that endurance

is not passive,

and resilience is not gentle.

In your mass,

there is patience that cannot be moved.

In your stride,

there is continuity.

The promise that life persists

not by being untouched,

but by standing,

again and again,

in the face of what tries to end it.