Skidby Windmill

The burning warmth of bourbon
and a paper and pencil
can fill even the emptiest evening.

Tonight I am thinking of the windmill
that I drive by twice each day,
how we have become like neighbours .

The ones who greet each other
with a passing nod
but who’s talk is always brief, polite
and is nearly always about the weather.

It stands on a hilltop.
An imposing giant chess piece
that - on seeing the ensuing conflict
- refused to fight anymore.

Those steel grey shoulders narrow
into a smooth waist that flare out into curving hips.
The ivory white top could be a great garlic bulb,
or spoon full of thick cream whipped high into single peak.

Some time ago it held it’s breath for me
as I revved through the pressing floodwater.
So many times I pressed it’s four rotating shadows
onto the dusty road on brightly lit mornings.

But as the sun rose today you had turned from me.
I saw you only in profile
as you stared into the spaces above the freshly cut fields.

And later, on my way home, I felt blanked.
Your back was turned,
your attention on something clearly far greater than us.

I will not forget those days when the winds were high.
Too high even to turn the opposing grind-stones in your belly.
And the way you just opened the slat-boards of your white sails,
allowed it all to pass through,
the song you sang as it moved into the distance.

So then shall I.
The next time the hounds of uncertainty
are straining at the harness
and baying wildly in the fog of the night,

I will throw open all of the many doors
in the hallways of my resistance
and allow them to pass through my spaces.

Just as the air passes so easily through yours.