I dont understand what exactly the poem ‘flower-fed buffaloes’ talks about. I really like it because it sounds so beautifull but i don’t understand the theme of the poem or um… basicly what he’s trying to say! Could you please help me? English is not my first language therefore i find it a little hard. Please could you guide me, and my love for Vachel Lindsay’s beautiful poems.

Emma.

About 50-75 years before Lindsay wrote his poem there were vast herds of buffalo (estimated at around 100 million animals) that roamed the plains and woodlands of America and Canada. After being extensivelly hunted for hides and meat, the herds dwindled until Lidsay’s time at which point they were almost extinct. When he wrote the poem there were maybe 500-1000 buffalo in existence. His poem is lamenting the demise of these magnificent animals.

Who indeed better than Lindsay. I’m glad you enjoyed it.

I know what you mean about how some poetry or other words can really make you get emotional. I’m like you, not really emotional, but some songs really get me. It’s probably due to the way that the brain is so good at connecting present events to the past. Emotions are sort of like brain shortcuts to bypass the time it takes to recall the event rationally/logically, but instead quickly makes the association to some past event. It’s a good division of labor between left brain / right brain. So there may be some connection from that poetry line that chokes you up to something either in your past or in your thoughts.

I posted before on your blog that Joni Mitchell is my all time favorite singer/songwriter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joni_mitchell

One of hers that can make me misty eyed (for a reason I don’t understand), is “My Best To You”. This is one of the few songs she performed that she didn’t write. It was written in 1942.

Here’s a Youtube audio of My Best To You. I understand it seems sappy, but it still gets to me:

So Here’s To You, Dr. Mike and MD!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeRtPUIsnEM

Here are the lyrics:

So here’s to you
May your dreams come true
May old father time
Never be unkind
And through the years
Save your smiles and your tears
They’re just souvenirs
They’ll make music in your heart

Remember this
Each new day is a kiss
Sent from up above
With an angels love
So here’s to you
May your skies be blue
And your love blessed
That’s my best to you

Remember this
Each new day is a kiss
Sent from up above
With an angels love
So here’s to you
May your skies be blue
And your love blessed
That’s my very best to you

Nice song. I had never heard it. Thanks for sending.

As an aside, I cannot listen to Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” without crying. And it can come upon me in an instant, as when my sister played a Copland CD on Thanksgiving and suddenly I was leaking on my turkey. It was sort of difficult to explain that I was affected by the music instead of being inordinately grateful for the meal and the company.

I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Thanks for writing.

Mary

Could well be. I hope so, in fact. I’d rather think I was having a seizure than that I was blubbering like a baby out of sentimentality.

BD’s version:

Well my heart’s in the Highlands gentle and fair
Honeysuckle blooming in the wildwood air
Bluebelles blazing, where the Aberdeen waters flow
Well my heart’s in the Highland,
I’m gonna go there when I feel good enough to go

Windows were shakin’ all night in my dreams
Everything was exactly the way that it seems
Woke up this morning and I looked at the same old page
Same ol’ rat race
Life in the same ol’ cage.

I don’t want nothing from anyone, ain’t that much to take
Wouldn’t know the difference between a real blonde and a fake
Feel like a prisoner in a world of mystery
I wish someone would come
And push back the clock for me

Well my heart’s in the Highlands wherever I roam
That’s where I’ll be when I get called home
The wind, it whispers to the buckeyed trees in rhyme
Well my heart’s in the Highland,
I can only get there one step at a time.

I’m listening to Neil Young, I gotta turn up the sound
Someone’s always yelling turn it down
Feel like I’m drifting
Drifting from scene the scene
I’m wondering what in the devil could it all possibly mean?

Insanity is smashing up against my soul
You can say I was on anything but a roll
If I had a conscience, well I just might blow my top
What would I do with it anyway
Maybe take it to the pawn shop

My heart’s in the Highlands at the break of dawn
By the beautiful lake of the Black Swan
Big white clouds, like chariots that swing down low
Well my heart’s in the Highlands
Only place left to go

I’m in Boston town, in some restaurant
I got no idea what I want
Well, maybe I do but I’m just really not sure
Waitress comes over
Nobody in the place but me and her

It must be a holiday, there’s nobody around
She studies me closely as I sit down
She got a pretty face and long white shiny legs
She says, “What’ll it be?”
I say, “I don’t know, you got any soft boiled eggs?”

She looks at me, Says “I’d bring you some
but we’re out of ‘m, you picked the wrong time to come”
Then she says, “I know you’re an artist, draw a picture of me!”
I say, “I would if I could, but,
I don’t do sketches from memory.”

“Well”, she says, “I’m right here in front of you, or haven’t you looked?”
I say,” all right, I know, but I don’t have my drawing book!”
She gives me a napkin, she says, “you can do it on that”
I say, “yes I could but,
I don’t know where my pencil is at!”

She pulls one out from behind her ear
She says “all right now, go ahead, draw me, I’m standing right here”
I make a few lines, and I show it for her to see
Well she takes a napkin and throws it back
And says “that don’t look a thing like me!”

I said, “Oh, kind miss, it most certainly does”
She says, “you must be jokin.’” I say, “I wish I was!”
Then she says, “you don’t read women authors, do you?”
Least that’s what I think I hear her say,
“Well”, I say, “how would you know and what would it matter anyway?”

“Well”, she says, “you just don’t seem like you do!”
I said, “you’re way wrong.”
She says, “which ones have you read then?” I say, “I read Erica Jong!”
She goes away for a minute and I slide up out of my chair
I step outside back to the busy street, but nobody’s going anywhere

Well my heart’s in the Highlands, with the horses and hounds
Way up in the border country, far from the towns
With the twang of the arrow and a snap of the bow
My heart’s in the Highlands
Can’t see any other way to go

Every day is the same thing out the door
Feel further away then ever before
Some things in life, it gets too late to learn
Well, I’m lost somewhere
I must have made a few bad turns

I see people in the park forgetting their troubles and woes
They’re drinking and dancing, wearing bright colored clothes
All the young men with their young women looking so good
Well, I’d trade places with any of them
In a minute, if I could

I’m crossing the street to get away from a mangy dog
Talking to myself in a monologue
I think what I need might be a full length leather coat
Somebody just asked me
If I registered to vote

The sun is beginning to shine on me
But it’s not like the sun that used to be
The party’s over, and there’s less and less to say
I got new eyes
Everything looks far away

Well, my heart’s in the Highlands at the break of day
Over the hills and far away
There’s a way to get there, and I’ll figure it out somehow
But I’m already there in my mind
And that’s good enough for now

The RB version:

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer -
A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe;
My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North
The birth place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

Farewell to the mountains high cover’d with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forrests and wild-hanging woods;
Farwell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe;
My heart’s in the Highlands, whereever I go.

Very nice. Thanks.

We are going to tape it.