The Passing of a Buffalo

Mark at full gallop at the first Buffalo Trace race at Mahomet, 2003. He ran the 5 miles in 35:33, 7:07/mile pace. Pretty good for a 47-year-old.

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Mark (standing, second from left) with the Buffaloes in 2002 at a Thursday evening run at the Buffalo Trace Trail at Mahomet.

My friend and fellow buffalo Mark Daly has passed away after a long battle with brain cancer. After being diagnosed with the cancer in the fall of 2005, Mark wanted to run with the buffaloes again after not being with us for quite a while. He asked about Thursday runs and moon runs, and did a moon run with us that December and later a few other runs.

Several months ago Mark mentioned to me a poem he liked, one that had a stanza about death and buffaloes. I knew the poem, and upon his passing I sadly present it here. Rest, Mark.

The Ballad Of William Sycamore
Stephen Vincent Benet

Now I lie in the heart of the fat, black soil,
Like the seed of a prairie-thistle;
It has washed my bones with honey and oil
And picked them clean as a whistle.

And my youth returns, like the rains of Spring,
And my sons, like the wild-geese flying;
And I lie and hear the meadow-lark sing
And have much content in my dying.

Go play with the towns you have built of blocks,
The towns where you would have bound me!
I sleep in my earth like a tired fox,
And my buffalo have found me.