The unknown men who laboured here
were servants of geometry,
wrestling with unwieldy form
to house a light in masonry.
The keeper climbed the spiral stair
to battle wind and fear and sea,
his vision hampered by the glare,
his faith in visibility.
My father, gazing as a child
sequestered on a hilltop farm,
watched in wonder and alarm
as shafts of brilliance swept the stars.
A master of geomancy, his father
scanned the earth he'd turned,
and once again divined the portents'
clear injunction to move on.
The son, grown under darker skies,
became a seeker after light,
who waited all his life for night
to yield a new and wondrous sign.