News that the government is due to announce a big expansion in the amount of electricity generated from offshore wind power - thousands of turbines to be built off the British coast to generate as much energy as around six nuclear power stations - has been well-received by the likes of Friends of the Earth, and sounds good to me.
Someone else who will welcome it is Welsh poetess Sheenagh Pugh, whose poem The Windfarm Angels (New Welsh Review, 59, Spring 2003) celebrates the grace of their design and their 'gesture language', their murmurs and whispers as they turn. Unlike some people, she wouldn't be without them now:
I've noticed, lately, they don't talk
so loud. Even watching a whole flock,
I have to strain to hear. Folk complained
- would you believe - about the noise,
so now they whisper. And some people
want them gone. I couldn't face that,
not now. I've got used to that presence,
that white embrace, being there
when I need it. I know all their haunts.
To think I might climb those hills one day
and find them empty. Jesus.
Out at sea they'll be away from the complainants' ears. I imagine, though, the poets will still find ways of celebrating their odd beauty.
john davies
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