WHITFORD LIGHTHOUSE

 

WHITFORD LIGHTHOUSE

each barnacled nut and bolt

each rusted panel    how old

do you think this lighthouse is

  ask the tides flowing each day

over and past and marooned

then high and dry 

momentarily 

the past intrudes into a thought

of past horrors on a stormy night

black and estuarine the flow

of times when there was a light

although there was no man aboard

this pavilion of iron on a base of stone

all alone on this ring of stone

all alone 

looking up at it now it is frightful 

the fright of not knowing if

there were horrors or ghosts

       for this must be haunted 

by every childhood late night book 

candled in flickering

hand it 

feel it 

palm the rough barnacles’ blood

whisper a few words 

an incantation called wind

what should be whispered 

in a goodbye’s forgive me 

for you are so alone and i visit so infrequently 

  well it’s the sea and the tides where you ride your

ignominy returning flake by flake to the tides 

that break over the decades of fleeting visitors 

who pat you rough sides

but never leave a kiss

  ah yes 

on writing this i see now what the horror is

not the black seas but the realisation 

that i never left a kiss   never once

i am coming back and i will stumble over

the weed rubble-wracked stones

and i will leave a kiss i promise you this

and we will sleep all the better for it

upon the winds that blow through the stanchions of gone