Here Fell The Son Of The Morningstar

The Big Sky wears itself a scowl
as I head out East on Interstate 90.
The Thunderbird is shape-shifting. Stirring from its sleep.
Across the Yellowstone River, keeping the rail-tracks on my right.
Past the oil refinery. And the posters advertising the annual re-enactment.
Come on. Many Indians. Heap Big Village. Overwhelming odds. Be quick.
The last Paleface to see that
crazy cocksure Cavalier alive
on that hot summer’s afternoon in June 1876,
was 7th cavalry bugler Giovanni Martini;
who was handed a note, scrawled hastily
upon a sheet of paper torn from a dispatch-book.
The note requested reinforcements and ammunition packs.
But when those reinforcements eventually arrived,
a full 2 days later, the only living thing
that could be found upon the greasy grass
was a wounded horse by the name of Comanche.
And Comanche’s silence spoke more eloquently than any words.
Comanche toured the country
until his eventual death in the year 1891.
After which he was stuffed-and-mounted
with full U.S. military honours, and placed
within a dehumidifying glass cabinet, which was housed
in the natural history museum at the University of Kansas.
Whichever way you do the math, it's safe to say
that The Boy General has been a long time waiting
for those ammunition packs of his to arrive.

Friends Of The Little Bighorn Battlefield