A poem that I loved when I was twelve or thirteen just came back to
me for reasons of its own, maybe the State of the Union speech--the
State of Limited Hopes--had something to do with it.
The Flower-Fed Buffaloes
The flower-fed buffaloes of the spring
In the days of long ago,
Ranged where the locomotives sing
And the prairie flowers lie low:
The tossing, blooming, perfumed grass
Is swept away by wheat,
Wheels and wheels and wheels spin by
In the spring that still is sweet.
But the flower-fed buffaloes of the spring
Left us long ago,
They gore no more, they bellow no more:--
With the Blackfeet lying low,
With the Pawnee lying low.
An American version of the pastoral--huge herds of ruminants
devouring flowers contrasted to the orderly patterns of civic life.
If you want to get really sad read the Parkman's introductions to
successive printings of The Oregon Trail (and read the book itself if
you haven't).
From almost the beginning Americans have imagined its history as a
story of loss, even as most of us have benefited from the changes.
Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry (University
of California Press).
http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
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