Skip to navigation – Site map

HomeIssues1Michel in the Diasporic ImaginationHybridity and PassagesFirst Day with Prancing Dan

Michel in the Diasporic Imagination
Hybridity and Passages

First Day with Prancing Dan

James A. Emanuel

Full text

1We called him Prancing Dan,
my brother Raymond and me;
beautiful this restless horse
(his bright-copper sidestepping--
ballet-like, prairie style),
teenager like us, as horses go,
Nebraska–born too,
bred on whirlwind-dust and knobby hail,
harnessed too young, like us
(men by necessity).

2Now teamed with a veteran mare,
bit in his teeth as pride commanded,
he gritted his way through morning,
the long blade of his mowing-machine
laying cut-down stems of wheat like carpet,
re-coloring the yellowing field
till noon.

3At the water-tank
Dan’s nose plunged first and deeper,
the mare’s downreined by harness laws,
both circling blowbubbles,
his upsnorted
as if to shake out ditties
from his leathered chains.

4The afternoon, all his,
surrendered with elegance:
an orange-and-purple butterfly,
settling on his perky mane,
rode plume with him home.

5Copyright © 2008 by James A. Emanuel. All rights reserved.

Top of page

References

Electronic reference

James A. Emanuel, “First Day with Prancing Dan”Transatlantica [Online], 1 | 2009, Online since 23 June 2009, connection on 16 April 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/4261; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/transatlantica.4261

Top of page

About the author

James A. Emanuel

 

By this author

Top of page

Copyright

CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

Top of page
Search OpenEdition Search

You will be redirected to OpenEdition Search