Whirligig

April 1 2012

The whirligig

is built for wind.

All spinning gears, and rattling limbs,

furious motion

going nowhere.

Weathered wood

has weathered the worst,

original paint

bleached, flaking.

The whimsical figure

with its weather vane.

Idiosyncratic art,

its maker, long forgotten.

On the family farm

that too, will soon be lost

to a trailer park, or housing tract.

Antique machinery, auctioned off,

battered barn-board

suddenly rich.

Funny how the whirligig

was worth so much

as folk art.

Highly prized

by collectors.

Who will display it proudly

inside,

protected from weather

deprived of wind.

Where the whirligig will die,

a decorous death

of uselessness.

Fondly remembered,

like old family farms

where we no longer live.

Sold

to the highest bidder.

I'm a big fan of Antiques Roadshow (the U.S. version, on PBS), where I am often astounded by the value of aesthetically simple and utilitarian objects like baskets, jugs, and folk art. “Highly prized by collectors”, as is often said on the show. The whirligig is not only a great example of this, but a wonderful word on which to hang a poem.

It seems that the simple fact of age and survival can confer exceptional value on a simple object. But also crucial is the importance of nostalgia, and of patriotism:  Americans love Americana; and in particular, stuff hand-made by working people, the salt of the earth.

What attracts me to these is not only their ingenuity, but their purity. That is, the purity of a creative act that is motivated simply by the joy of the maker, the whimsy of his imagination, and the love of idiosyncratic beauty.