27·10·2026 / At the rainbow’s end was surely Abilene

Un joli reportage de Lyna Mansouri et Cloé (sic) Giroux, Radio Canada.

Nous irons voir les résultats à Abilene, Texas…

Un poème en passant, parce que… pourquoi pas :

On a jaded horse at the close of day,
A youth gazed across the plain
At the blinking lights that guided him
Like masts upon the main.
As he spurred the stolid pony on
Toward the heartening scene
He sighed relief and hummed a tune,
For this was Abilene.

Where freighter’s mules munched fat nosebags
And Lapowski reigned supreme,
Where glittering barrooms graced the night
Amid the songs of dance-hall queens;
Where rugged men with boots and beards
Watched the swiftly moving scene,
They bought their joy and paid in gold
When they came to Abilene.

Here tight-lipped men from lonely trails
Came in to have their fling,
Their hard-earned gold like water flowed
While they made the welkin ring.
When the spree was done they drifted back
To trail and bunkhouse scenes
Without remorse for their missing gold,
For they’d been to Abilene.

Her glittering streets that shine today
Have known the clank of spurs,
And booted heels have clumped their way
Where now swift motors purr.
Skyscrapers pierce the evening shades
And throw a purple sheen
While sky birds zoom a lazy tune
Over modern Abilene.

Yet I’d turn back on the trail of years
To the old T-Diamond days
And spur a tired pony on
Through the nightfall’s gathering haze.
Could I go back to that happy day
When I was seventeen
And thought the prize at the rainbow’s end
Was surely Abilene.

Abilene… Texas, 1936. Walter H. Cousins (1878-1942).