THE WINDMILL AT THE "OLD HOME PLACE" IS GONE

"Our Old Windmill"

Photo by Mil, Ranchvale, 1969

The old windmill that I loved,
That faithfully, with its joyous clangs
Pumped out a stream of pure, cold water
Into a plowing-boy's beat-up straw hat...
To be dumped over his hot sunburned face---
In the forties---
Is gone.

Why is it---that it has to be gone?
Seems like the nature of things
On this earth.
It happens to people too.

Plowing in the hot summer
From dawn to dusk, on a heavy tractor...
Sweltering from the heat,
Smothering from the slow-rising, hanging dust,
Irritated by the hovering gnats and flies,
You hoped for a breeze to turn the mill,
And maybe bring rain, so you could
Call it a day!

If you were lucky, a breeze would come,
And maybe rain clouds from out Melrose way---
Lightning! Your signal to dismount
And head for the windmill.
And cold water!

You get there...
It is a poetic, wooden windmill!
One that has seen many winters.
It is turning, turning, turning, for
The wind is blowing hard now...
The windmill is working about as fast as it can,
It's as if it is almost enjoying the workout---
Kind of like when someone jogs and talks
At the same time, half-way out of breath;
"CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, BOY, LOOK AT ME,
IS THIS PUMPING...OR WHAT?!
CLANG, CLANG---- HAVE A COLD DRINK
OF WATER, ON ME! GO GET THE COWS!
AREN'T I BETTER THAN SOME OLD PUMP?!"

This happened more than once!
You'd dunk your head with a leaking straw hat full,
And drink several cans full of water,
From our old can. Nothing like it!

A dear friend of mine, recently told me---
"I was out by your old place the other day
And that old mill that you loved...
Is gone." Oh, how it hurt...to lose one of
My best friends from the forties.

Why is it gone? It was made of heavy timbers,
Mounted in the ground on heavy cedar posts,
Six feet deep.
Oh sure, it had some cracks and wrinkles,
Try living on this earth outside through
Many hot summers and many freezing winters
And this will happen to us all.

Likely it's because of a pump.
I'll bet they got a pump.
One of those ugly motor-looking things
That never had a poetic piece of wood
In its body!

Yes! I know them and their ilk!
They are all steel and all business.
Why, I'll bet they have never even "CLUNG, CLUNG,"
Once....
In their sorry lives!
Even in a big wind.

The poetry in mills, is not in the steel,
It's in the wood.
For you see, the WOOD in windmills is like us.
It starts off, with just a shoot. (We're called "buttons.")
It grows and grows and matures and is ready
To take on its life's work.

Wood is a metaphor for us.
It weathers---it cracks---it bends---
It sometimes breaks---
It creaks---it groans---it ages---
It has personality!!!

Steel---big important deal!
It rusts.

Give me the wood and the poetry
Every time.

Besides, my dad erected that windmill,
And thus...

 It is more precious.

"Your beloved windmill is gone."

There should have been a service.
Windmills should have services.

Old pickup trucks too.

*****30******
BY MIL
1/26/13

Mil

Sent from my iPad