What do ruminants do all day? Ruminate, of course.
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In 1822 his parents-to-be saw a great meteor shower in the sky and so named their boy Red Cloud.
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Evidently (the winter count) the Leonid meteor shower of 1833 was a beaut. No Ears rendered it thusly:

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I've spent most of my life in earthquake country and now here I am in tornado country. A mid-life change of catastrophic situations can be bracing...

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POEM- North Dakota, Autumn '04

And so I become that most archetypical of stock Western figures
A man with a gun waiting for a train
The prairie dogs are looking at me I can tell
(somebody make them stop!)
Enscarpments litter the landscape
Where the water used to be
It rains for 30 seconds
One windshield wiper swooshs worth
A buff rubs against a dusty oak
Shedding last years coat
What a ruminant does all day
Ruminate of course
Deer and antelope play
(where have I heard that before?)
A string of Indian summers
20 at night, 80 during the day
Early October
And I become as silent as the rock
A small herd of wild horses look at me
As if I were crazy
And I am
I am
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