April 4 -I ❤ Buffalo and Wolves

I ❤ Buffalo and Wolves

I know, they're really bison, but our grandfathers' name for them,
Stuck and I'm from the heartland where we've no need to prove
That we are intellectually or morally superior to city people.
We just know it and live happily in our quaint little rural groove.

Let's bring the buffalo or the bison or the American bison back
Whatever you call them and while we're at it wolves, bears and panthers
Wouldn't that be nice? And sure the Native Americans would just love it.
They're all so beautiful and natural and we city people have all the anthers.

Ever notice how many of them lisp like that; as they tell us what we ought
To do with the land our restless ancestors farmed and ranched and died on?
"I know let's put some wolves on some guy's ranch or how about mountain lions?
"I know, here's a little bit of forest by the Sabine River some bears would like to lie on.

It's funny, but you just know if a reconstituted herd of half a million bison,
Came stampeding through their communities knocking down those wrought iron gates
And trampling down the rose beds and taking baths in upscale swimming pools
That nine-one-one would be deluged with half a million angry resident complaints.

And the first time a pack of wolves set up camp in someone's yard,
Waiting to see if the lavender smelling poodle would soon come on outside,
Or the day one's toddler shouted "kitty" and toddled off across the yard
To pet the pretty panther, sitting at the end of the child-safe play fort slide.

Or the black bear, not bright enough to recognize the river as a border,
Nor knowing that in Texas after swimming the Sabine one must
Never slap a kitty off a rail, and have it for your lunch for there'd be trouble
Cause in Texas kitty's mama's shotgun judgment is considered imminently just,

Or if we dropped the surplus predators in some West or East Coast town,
Just to give the nature lovers a little taste as predator populations do pick up,
Perhaps some folk would not be quite so ready to be occasionally eaten
By bears or hunted down by the hungry packs just to keep the gray wolf numbers up.

© by Tom King