Terri Simon

The whirlygig man makes pinwheels,
flaps and wings, arms and legs,
until the ground near his home
grows fertile with living steel.
A copter sits on a platform
higher than the pines,
nose cone polka dotted in white and yellow.
A five-story windmill twirls
red and blue in the afternoon sun.
When he was told to slow down,
in his mid-eighties,
he merely shrank his creations
to human size.
A metal chicken, parts rescued
from gig debris,
stares nose to nose at visitors.
The sculptor works astronomy
at ground level,
balances engineering and silliness,
rotating colors and creaking music
in a constellation of fantasies.

--------- For Volas Simpson, Wilson, NC