Ode to a Windmill

*
In sleek and lofty sinews high
And trunk of white ere planted deep
Your curved and splendid blades to sky
Which deep within a secret keep
Not seen at all that knowledge dark
Held aloft and taken from the ether
Surges power conjured from the air
A strong and bright Promethean spark
The harvest of thy spinning reaper
Courses through thy lithe limbs fair
*
What cries and fears dost thou arouse
Though your sound itself is soft and clean
Passions are all a’stirred: “the milk of cows
Is curdled!”; “the politics gone green!”
But all care that a man may so take
And all thought that a woman may muster
Are kept yet distant from thy purpose clear
For thy blades through the air doth rake
All gainsayers collapse to froth and bluster
while electrons are garnered without fear
*
A sentinel points: here’s a new better way
Thrusting skywards, its head unbowed
Coaxes from the zephyrs the payday
Of unburnt coal and crisp white cloud
For here’s thy might O tall slim tower
Whose arms hold within their sure embrace
The lively generation of our time
To make a strong and enduring power
And speed us on in our crushing race
Thy mighty blades: surely beauty sublime
*

Why on earth would you write an ode to a windmill? I had heard some politicians (of the coal-loving variety) had expressed what an awful blot on the landscape these new power-generators were. It struck me as passing strange that of all the changes mankind has wreaked on the landscape, these sleek, powerful and thin machines had been singled out for ire. Has anyone seen what a coal mine looks like? Or an industrial site? Or looked at tar sand mining from the air. Or considered fracking? Or even a standard power generator?

Of course, their view had been biased by their desire to keep digging up coal. It is what these machines represent that somehow makes them ugly. But they’re not. They’re quiet and efficient and put no carbon back into the atmosphere during their long working life.

Various commissions and enquiries have looked into the false claims of infrasound, and the various effects ascribed. These read more like Salem witch trials trying to work out why the milk was curdled and the cream gone sour. Think again, I say. They’re great, and do have a certain beauty. Perhaps in the decades to come more of us will come to view these machines as we currently view the old windmills on farms: as a part of the landscape.