Todd Swift: The Lighthouse Keeper

It might be wiser to weather in a lighthouse
Than risk the vertical incisions of the storm
That seems to have rescued the torn sea from itself
Only to let it return, this time as tragedy, as full rain.
No longer as young as when, morning, the sky, like pearl,
Was forming an idea, both pale and rare, you shelve
The green Clampitt and admit night's other influence
Now as the vicious parakeet of light screeches again.
It is a wise reader that stays in for the Horn's winter,
Knowing no matter how literal the mad trades - hurling -
Desire to become, wildness winters in this tall home,
A tower whose saving grace revolves above its calm.
The custom is to lay provisions, storing for the squall;
To reflect on, through the many fog-throttled panes, water.