"I don't agree with our president on most things, but we share a love of poetry. That's why I'm troubled by the know-nothing response to Trump's latest verse, an elegiac meditation on wind and mortality. Don't we want our leaders to step away from the concerns of the moment every now and then, to consider timeless matters? It's really quite a lovely effort--easily the best poem by a president in the last fifty years." -- Jeff Sharlet
[Verbatim from the White House transcript.]
You Want to See A Bird Graveyard?
By D. Trump
I never understood wind.
You know, I know
windmills very much.
I have studied it
better than anybody
else. It’s very expensive.
They are made in China
and Germany mostly.
—Very few made here, almost none,
but they are manufactured, tremendous
—if you are into this—
tremendous fumes. Gases are
spewing into the atmosphere. You know
we have a world
right?
So the world
is tiny
compared to the universe.
So tremendous, tremendous
amount of fumes and everything.
You talk about
the carbon footprint
— fumes are spewing into the air.
Right? Spewing.
Whether it’s in China,
Germany, it’s going into the air.
It’s our air
their air
everything — right?
A windmill will kill many bald eagles.
After a certain number
they make you turn the windmill off.
That is true.
—By the way
they make you turn it off.
And yet, if you killed one
they put you in jail.
That is OK.
You want to see a bird graveyard?
You just go.
Take a look.
A bird graveyard.
Go under a windmill someday,
you’ll see
more birds
than you’ve ever seen
in your life.