There is a place out on the plain,
Where standing in the sun and rain,
With never any care or pain,
There stand ten thousand rows and rows
And rows and rows and rows and rows
Of stately, feasting buffaloes.

These big-eyed bums don’t go to schools,
They have no use for swimming pools,
Among their number are no fools,
Just rows and rows and rows and rows
(And this is how the story goes)
Of saintly, self-taught buffaloes.

Now you may think it very strange
That after years out on the range
They entertain no thought of change,
But are content to stand in rows
And rows and rows—they have no toes!
With all their fellow buffaloes.

So very soon I’ll tell you why
They choose to live beneath the sky
And never even bat an eye:
For he to whom the whole world goes
To find the answers no one knows
Lives in the land of buffaloes.

The buffaloes, despite their might,
Would find themselves in quite a plight
If he weren’t there both day and night.
He hardly ever comes or goes,
He never wears a stitch of clothes!
He says I have a funny nose.

He moves around from day to day,
From back of beast to stalk of hay,
And for his work he takes no pay.
So, why he lives there no one knows.
Perhaps he just likes buffaloes.
As one wise man said, “So it goes.”

© 2002 Rolf E. Olsen, all rights reserved