What is the poem mainly about?

1. It's hard, you know, without the buffalo,
2. the shaman, the arrow,
3. but my father went out each day to hunt
4. as though he had them.
5. He worked in the stockyards.
6. All his life he brought us meat.
7. No one marked his first kill,
8. no one sang his buffalo song.
9. Without a vision, he had migrated to the city
10. and went to work in the packing house.
11. When he brought home his horns and hides
12. my mother said
13. get rid of them.
14. I remember the animal tracks of his car
15. backing out the drive in snow and mud,
16. the aerial on his old car waving
17. like a bow string.
18. I remember the silence of his lost power,
19. the red buffalo painted on his chest.
20. Oh, I couldn't see it
21. but it was there, and in the night I heard
22. his buffalo grunts like a snore.

The poem is about the journey and transformation of the poet's father from a native, ancestral way of life to a modern, city-based lifestyle. The repetition of buffalo signifies the longing and the loss of cultural identity. The city and the father's work represent the new life they have adopted.

Explanation:

This poem is a reflection of the poet's father's life and his integration into a new way of living, apart from his ancestral traditions. The main theme of the poem is centered around loss of culture, the struggle of identity and adaption to change. This is evidenced by the father working in the city and bringing home "horns and hides", symbols that did not fit into their new way of life. The buffalo signifies survival and the tribal, free lifestyle that their ancestors led, which is in stark contrast to their current city life. The concepts of vision, migration and the city signify the father's journey and adaptation, demonstrating the progression from his native lifestyle to one characterized by modernity and industrialization.

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