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Lighthouse Keeper
The Hyacinth Review
The Hyacinth Review

Lighthouse Keeper

by
December 4, 2023
The Lighthouse of Gatteville, Paul Signac, 19th c.

Benjamin Bowers is a student from England. He enjoys translated…

Waking means greeting light that isn’t from my hands - isn’t from the maw of the great beast I handle. The sheets are cold. The ground is cold. The sea air is biting as I climb to the gob of my charge. One great big gash - I trim the wicks lugging and creaking, an old piston or trusty cog. Two flasks grasped, thick with fuel, and poured down the gullet. Three shanties sang winding the clockworks, watching time roll under my wrinkled hands. Hands that know not the irregularity of its own with no one as a gauge - a life instead spent creating one in raging waves.
The light sinks and the sky rips and bleeds. It’s time to blot out the stretching tendrils of night. I rally the mouth and it roars - out screams a great crescendo of light. Sometimes I sit by the window tea fuming in a cup in my fisted grip lapping up the lapping tide with my eyes.
I wonder how others live. I am a human with purpose. God-given or handed from my father’s own wrinkled hands. I have a guiding light - my duty to create one. I wonder if all humans live like I do. Working monotonously, chugging in their role, all to create a light. Now, I wipe down the windows and stare at the twirling beam of white illumination dancing on the sea and spilling between the cracked rocks. I’ll keep waking to the light and sleeping to the light and dying ‘til the light dies too.
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Benjamin Bowers is a student from England. He enjoys translated fiction and travelling. His work can be found in Stone of Madness Press, The Greyhound Journal, MR Mag, and more. Find him at benkbpoetry on Twitter and benkb_poetry on Instagram.

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