"THERE'S FOREVER A 'CLANG-CLANG' IN MY SOUL"

"THERE'S FOREVER A 'CLANG-CLANG' IN MY SOUL”

(It is said that once there were a
hundred windmill companies in the US....
but now...less than six...

                        ***************************

O you really haven't lived
or fully known the depth and
joy of being an American
until
you have drunk---on a hot
summer day

cold clear water from deep
underground, purified by
pristine rocks and sand
and brought up to you
by a windmill...

....a collection of pipes,
"sucker rods," and a big
fan that catches the wind...
and turns...and pumps...

On ten million farms/ranches across
America, over centuries,
such wonderful water, from coast
to coast made a
"thoroughfare for freedom"
possible....

This pure water is still there
under the ground, only deeper
now...and mostly raised by
unpoetic electric pumps--

Windmills have gone the way
of mules and plows, quiltin'
parties, people who pick cotton,
and hog killin' at Christmas...

The water still sates the thirst
of the body
but maybe not the soul, as when
a farm boy fills his straw hat
to the brim...and dumps it
over his head on a 95 degree
plow-day...water right outta the ground...

...with the wind a'blowin'
and the windmill a'pumpin'
to beat sixty...
and the "CLANG-CLANG"
in the pipes....always
beating along in rhythm...
with his heart.
***************

MIL
13 AUGUST 17

Writer's note---The old leaning windmill,
halfway between Clovis and Roswell at
Elkins, New Mexico, (a half mile behind
the store,) was photographed by me
with my 3.5 Rollei, with a red filter,
and a crawl under tight-barbed-
wire. on a spring day in 1969.

The picture won a First Place in an
Albuquerque Tribune contest, 1969,
an award at the State Fair, and
others...

My wife and I passed by Elkins in 1992
and slowed down, searching for "my
old windmill," but alas...it was gone.

The skyline was empty. Sadly so... 

PHOTO, MIL, 1969:

                        "Leaning Windmill and Painted Sky"

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