Eureka

Here was no place for illumination

the cotton dust thick window-strained light.

The metal squall drowned what could not be shouted

everything geared warping and filling.

Though surely there were some times that he paused

my grandfather thinking This is my life

and catching himself before he was caught

lost wages or fingers the risk of reflection.

Or another recalled in those reckoning moments

remembering the mountains the hardscrabble farm

where a workday as long bought no guarantee

of money come fall full bellies in winter.

To earn extra pay each spring he would climb

the mill's water tower repaint the one word.

That vowel heavy word defined the horizon

a word my grandfather could not even read.