Transition
By John C. Mannone
Prairie wind funnels dust
Into the heavenlies stirred up
By a white stallion. Chief's
Final gallop in this life.
Before the scarlet sun sets
Behind silhouetted sagebrush
Purpled by short hours, he prays
To the Great Spirit for safe
Transition to the otherworld.
His echo still rides haunting
The land. The long moon cries
But his sons have no war paint
On their faces. It was a good
Death.
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John C. Mannone has poems accepted in North Dakota Quarterly, the 2020 Antarctic Poetry Exhibition, Foreign Literary Review, The Menteur, Blue Fifth Review, Poetry South, Baltimore Review, and others. His won the Impressions of Appalachia Creative Arts Contest in poetry (2020) and the Carol Oen Memorial Fiction Prize (2020). He was awarded a Jean Ritchie Fellowship (2017) in Appalachian literature and served as celebrity judge for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (2018). His latest collection, Flux Lines: The Intersection of Science, Love, and Poetry, is forthcoming from Linnet’s Wings Press (2020). He edits poetry for Abyss & Apex and other journals. A retired physics professor, he lives near Knoxville, Tennessee. http://jcmannone.wordpress.com
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