Lightkeepers in their granite towers by cristinaledesma33

Lightkeepers in their granite towers

From The lights by Miriam Nash
It’s getting dark again,
a closer dark
that’s harder to shake off,
and I think of the lightkeepers
in their granite towers,
oiling bolts, winding weights
in the nineteenth century dark—
scrubbing dishes, writing the log,
testing the bulbs
of the twentieth century light—
the final keeper
climbing down his ladder
in 1998, at the end of the last shift—
the automated switch, the microchip,
monitored in Edinburgh
where two centuries before,
one Thomas Smith
manufacturer of street lamps
sat with an oil flame
and a Scottish map—
I strike a match over dark reefs
where ships would crack,
the year unhooks its old black hat
to have a go at vanishing
the human world.

Throwback Thursday (28 Mar 2015, Murano)
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