Ruby Hansen Murray

—After “Bison Red Sky at Night” by Joe Don Brave, Cherokee and Osage artist.

Joe Don Brave paints bison,
a single white animal under a silver moon,
red sky you could read as heat or life blood.

It’s triggering to see the triangular
pyramid of bison skulls, waste, men
gathering photos, evidence of slaughter.

Osage say they don’t know how to live,
powerful men agents of destruction,
unreasoned greed, a lack of sense,

too smart to entertain alternatives.
It’s too hot for me under the arbor
some years, elders weigh the risk, fall out. 

I want to ask Louis, my relative
about Penn Creek north of Hominy,
𐒹𐒰𐓀𐒰͘𐓍𐒻, when bison meandered

all the way to Bone Lick, Kentucky.
Jefferson, excited to categorize the bones,
when he believed we, too, could be conquered.

I want to paint them, the great wooly ruff,
my paucity of terms, intimacy
with our great family, seeing them up close,

brown eyes, a large face in the car window,
golden calves like sparks among them.

I want to see bison run past Pow Wow
Grounds on Franklin, get coffee
from Robert Rice of White Earth Nation,

stomp guns and chemical munitions,
make art in the cultural corridor, bison
in neon vests, modeling freedom.