Birth of the White Bison

In the age of the fish, cobblestones

shift through a square & in hand turn

old weapon — beyond the city an ocean

swings in pelicans & spinner dolphins,

leaves them on the Peruvian shore, or

in a small town two thousand blackbirds fall

from the Arkansas sky “just like last year” — 

but far off in the silence of the rural plains

this cow wallows on a grassy mound

till a muzzle merges from another world,

onlookers gawk along a picket fence

as she pushes the head & two hooves

& then stands to open for the calf

that makes way with a message — 

a woman in the shape of a cloud saying

return to your people & tell them I am coming.