For thirty years, or perhaps a hundred,
The windmill was hypnotized by its own blades
Like a child with a pinwheel.
It dreamed of raging surf and foaming cliffs,
As it leaned over the delicate ruins of a mining town.
Every year the storms came
With harrowing tempests
And laughing claps of thunder.
Worried, the windmill waited.
The sunset clawed at furrowed mountains.
Distant cities glittered like myriad insects,
And comets pirouetted through their heavenly amphitheater.
Finally, it hampered its journeyman arms
And sallied forth to bathe in the sea
Or, rather, tilted and lurched,
Suddenly exiled, already missing the wind.
How like an overgrown flower it looked,
Resisting gravel ramparts, semaphoring,
Scoring vast clouds with raggedy wings.
Eventually, tattered from its poignant pilgrimage,
It approached the glittering bay
On the eve of the New Year,
Mesmerized by bursting fireworks.
A parade of ferries circled, their derrieres
Trailing banners and vibrant ripples.
Daring paragliders, like condors, hovered
Under thunderheads, dodging lightning,
And a Cessna whined over the horizon,
Winnowing the haze.
The water was blinding,
And the breeze brought fragrant rills
Of sea myrtle and pungent gaillardia.
But as it made a first imprint in the sand
Its termite-haunted pillars crumbled.
Its flagging pinions cracked.
It threw off its heavy pillory,
Turned a rusty cartwheel,
And mingled its ancient dust with the salt brine.
