Buffalo Springtime

The kindly faithful light returns.
Morning returns and the forgiving season.
The pastures turn green, again. Blossom
And leafbud gentle the harsh woods.
The warm breezes return to the cold river.
The phoebe returns to the porch.
And I return again to my window…

Wendell Berry
(from the poetry collection “Given”)

I paid the 25 cents for the copy of my land survey and left the Sauk County office building. Outside, the Wisconsin spring was deciding to have a winter flashback. No matter though, for that same day I had seen the first green buds in my woods. They were fat buds on a scrawny scrap of a tree. Big, green, plump, wonderful fat buds. The lakes had melted and now these buds.

Snowflakes teased the wind outside, but seedling prayers were growing and with them the big fat buds of springtime on planet earth. And today also, now this news...from the casual banter in the Sauk County land survey office sprouted this big, green, plump, wonderful news.

I will explain. You see, near my house in Wisconsin, about a mile and a long-throw-of-a-small-rock away, you'll find the Badger Army Ammunition Plant. Over 7000 tired acres in the southern shadow of the towering glacier bluffs, this land has been sequestered and quarantined for decades. Sacred Indian grounds once wove this land like patchwork, but these memories were long since forsaken. Instead, from 1942 to 1975, this land lived its days making ordnance for World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Production included single- and double-propellants for cannons, rockets, and small arms weapons. During the cold war, it was on the "hot list" for potential sites of nuclear attack, as apparently this land had proved its mettle in the business of warfare.

This soldier-land retired in 1976. Contaminated. Tired. Yet still fenced in, looking out into a world that had moved on without it.

But now this news. This big, green, plump, wonderful news. In the Sauk County office, waiting for my land survey, I asked, "Do you all know if there are any plans yet for the Badger Ammunition Plant?" The answer came quickly, because just last month the official agreement was signed after years and years of debate and compromise. As surprising as fat green buds on a scrawny scrap of a tree, the news was good. So good. The land is to be split 3-ways: the US Department of Agriculture will study cow feed in the first, the DNR will extend a channel of Devil's Lake State Park all the way south to Lake Wisconsin in the second, and finally the Ho-Chunk Indian Nation will reclaim the third.

But on this third part (and here is where I shake my head and verily chuckle at the nature of answered prayer), the Ho-Chunk will not only restore their sacred land, but they will restore a prairie full of buffalo. Yes, it is true. No casinos. No cement. Buffalo.

I envision and trust that the Creator made the land we call America not to be a juggernaut converting the rest of the world with politics and ordnance, but rather a sacred land (as all land should be). It has always been a sacred land; we just have not treated it so. We humans are not generally fair and not generally humble. We are often harsh, like a long winter with short days and cold nights. But spring finds a way, again as always.

I close my eyes and envision the future of buffalo dotting my landscape like those fat green buds on a tree resurrected by spring.

bn

April 2007