windmills

 

the old windmills

in Spain, slowly turning

large cloth blades

 

turning and grinding

ancient grains of the past

 

lined up in a row on a hillside

waiting for Don Quixote

to mistake them for giants

 

with his sidekick Sancho

he attacked them

only to get his lance

caught in the canvas blades

 

thought he had been tricked

by an evil magician that turned

the giants into windmills

 

his sidekick questioned his tactics

but obediently followed

 

never disagreeing

because Quixote promised him

a governorship of an island

 

judged reality based on his

false perceptions, ascribing to

it the things that simply were not there

 

he lived in the world of his own making

paranoid odd behavior

classical signs of inability

to take the blame for his actions

 

when Quixote died

the windmills kept turning

as though he never existed

 

Sancho got nothing in the end

 

the windmills keep

following the wind

 

graceful as they turn

and turn