For Want Of A Windmill...

For Want Of A Windmill...

In the 1860's a Jesuit Priest fashioned a whirligig dream,
Grew a business most successful,
'Till the days after WW II spinning water out of the ground,
All started in a little Wisconsin town.

Spin and whirl,
Pretty as a pearl,
Ornate wood or polished steel,
Pretty painted colors the life of many a farmer.

A Chicago company saw the light,
Bought the rights and moved North,
Fairbanks Morse landed in Beloit,
All was well that pumped the well.

In the 1920's an immigrant from Italy,
One Tuscan gentleman of little fame,
Landed and landed a job,
There by the river at Fairbanks Morse.

He found a wife and adopted a baby girl,
My own mother and grandmother,
So Noni cooked and Nono ground metal,
And my Mother married my Dad.

Spin and whirl,
Pretty as a pearl,
Ornate wood or polished steel,
Pretty painted colors the life of many a farmer.

Four children born there on the Rock,
Myself and my siblings all alive,
In the year 2000 I turned to poetry,
And fancied windmills could save the Earth.

I wrote poems of the graceful things,
Took my son to see them,
Blogged of the light and right,
And tilted at windmills for all I was worth.

Only just yesterday I find I'd have never been born nor they,
For want of a windmill in 1867,
The Poet who loves windmills exists because of a windmill,
Simply named Eclipse.

AquarianM

By Daniel A. Stafford
© 09/02/2008

http://www.spearman.org/Eclipsehistory.html

http://www.whizzyrds.com/Windblog.html

My Grandfather worked for 44 years at Fairbanks Morse, which would never have located in Beloit, WI if not for the Eclipse windmill. The Eclipse windmill line was arguably the most successful water-pumping windmill in American history, and also served in many locations overseas. My Grandfather very likely would have ended up somewhere else if the Eclipse windmill wasn't invented and made in Beloit - and I and all my brothers and sisters would never have been. How ironic that I have been a promoter of windmills as a large part of the solution to climate crisis these past eight years.Tilting at windmills quite simply suits me.