artwork: ralph murre
Raising Windmills
by Mary Wehner
Against a calculated wing swing
in the parsed-out fields
the rolling hills cease their rolling.
Cattle hunch, geese scatter,
the polished white shadows
like spinning armies march and pulse.
It was in the winter months
the strangers came, sat at the farmer’s
kitchen table, laying out their cards,
a few extra bucks in a hard clay world,
a little help for the worried. No one
loses
they said and shook hands. A done
deal.
There’s clean power for the folks in Chicago
some left over for the Wisconsin neighbors now
awake most nights counting the timed
red flickers.
~
first published in Verse Wisconsin
