Friday, November 05, 2010

Wind Farms: Repost


Windmills courtesy of Pacific Power. This is a very characteristic scene in the eastern half of the Columbia Gorge these days. I'm reposting this poem to go with it:

From a distance they're spiky white heiroglyphs
that seem to stitch blue air to golden earth.

But up close, they're giants
swinging triskelial arms far above the head
of a man on a swaybacked horse!
Sucking down power from an endless sky
they spin kaleidoscope shadows across the thirsty ground
on days when whitecaps lie on the Columbia
like fine lace on a table, and the cars on I-84
shake in the cross-gusts at the mouth of the John Day.

The black gushers were a harvest millions of years
in the making, only decades in the spending.
Wind farms are not a cycle of sow, cultivate and reap.
Wind is a gift of the eternal Now.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

1 comment:

carmilevy said...

I'm so glad you shared this! They've been building wind farms within a couple-of-hour radius of our place, and I've wanted to get out to see them for ages. Just haven't been able to carve out the time.

I think I need to go for a drive before the snow flies. I'll bring your poem with me when I do. For some much-needed perspective. Thanks for the push!