The Windmill

Time I greased the windmill,
Father said—he did not know
my urge to be a man. Before he
left the dinner table I was gone.
Oilcan in my back pocket I faced
a wooden tower seventy feet into
the sky that tapered to a point
where the wheel turned and pivoted
on its bearings. (I shut it down
before I climbed, turned in the
vanes out of the wind.) My Mount
Everest calling me, I climbed.
Wood rungs to clutch with hands
and feet, no squirrel to scamper,
I gripped hard. Up, up and up,
the tower grew narrow, like a leech
I clung. I poked my head through
the platform, then rose to stand.
My god, the wheel looked big,
its counterbalance huge, wind gave it
a push for half a turn, I groped
for safety. I squirted oil, I greased the axle
as far as I could reach.
Then seized by mania I climbed
to the top of the housing
and carefully stood up and balanced
there with nothing for my hands
to grasp, and stared into the sky.
Clouds moving made the tower
lean to fall. In a vortex of
madness I felt the falling tower.
Whirlpools of vertigo, clouds,
tower, boy and a forming arc.
(It is easy to die when you are young.)
I stood on the iron housing,
slippery with oil, gripped my balance,
arms outstretched like a tightrope
walker, dizzy with clouds on a
swaying tower. My monkey hands clung
when I stooped, feet felt for the
platform then the ladder’s rungs . . .
to tremble until I reached the ground.