A poem I wrote in 1996 about one visual, but disappearing aspect of the Great Plains – the farm windmills.

Timepiece of the Heartland

Time is an abstract wonder

Both cyclical and seasonal

But in our nation’s heartland

It’s measured by the windmill

–

Spinning freely in the breeze

Upon a tinsel frame, so thin

A windmill comes full circle

Only to begin all over again

–

Like a rusty chronometer

Quantifying space and time

The windmill rotates constantly

In a wind-driven, ageless chime

–

The courthouse has its clock tower

The church steeple its rhythmic bells

But heartland fields and furrows

Gauge time by whirling windmills

–

As years march ever onward

And symbols fade from view

History comes full circle

For to a windmill, nothing’s new.

–

Rick Brown – 3/9/96