Once, I walked along side Hope, the white buffalo. I would run my fingers through her course pelt and speak to her in gutteral tones. I hung from bone and sinew that ripped at the tender flesh of my chest and contemplated the great spirit. I ran with the wind, and fell like a stone when the whites came. I was a man, a warrior, and I died along side the river listening to the cry of women and children. I have been a women since, I am a woman now. But sometimes I dream of running wild and free and I wake to the smell of long meadow grass, and know sadness for the death of Hope.