The Animals
for baritone and piano
2. American Buffalo
How many we were, American buffalo.
How large we are, each and all, how many we were.
So very many, too many to count,
stampeded to the buffalo jump.
We were made to be your heavy coats.
We were the meat, we were the leather.
We were the sinew for bows. We were the grease.
We made the dung for your fires.
We were the hooves turned into glue.
We were the last bits of marrow in hard times, too.
We wallowed to groom. We huddled in herds.
We thundered, and we frightened the birds.
We fought off the wolves and the grizzlies.
We ran through the chutes, away from men,
thundering to get free. Still,
we gave you clothing, we gave you heat.
We gave our hides to shelter.
We were too good to you.
We gave you what to eat.
In the storybooks, we stood until
we were hollow bodies and brittle bones.
Then we collapsed from within. Look for our kind
at the top of the Medicine Wheel. Once,
we had a future that is not the future we have.
Still, we have a past that will remain our past.
We jumped our heavy bodies over the cliffs.
We have learned not to run.
Written during the summer of 2009, The Animals is a cycle of nine songs written and dedicated to Stephen Swanson, who premiered them in
October of that year. Poet Marvin Bell created the texts specifically for this cycle. The work not only takes inspiration from the Ravel
and Poulenc animal songs, but is also rooted in the American tradition: Gershwin's Tin Pan Alley, and more recently the songs of
William Bolcom.