I
I have stood my ground amid chaos of the thrashing darkening coast. How long does this beacon shine?
Sending a signal out into the darkness, since the first sailor, since unending consciousness.
Shining out, then shining out, then shining out, then ...
The ghosts have entered my ruin, drifted through my corridors, making their way towards my heart.
They are what remains when the storm has passed, when night has lasted, when hope has ceased,
transparent rainbows, they claim staircases, balconies, closed doors, realm of the apparitions.
Lighthouses attract them. I did not say that you would not find me haunted.
I did not promise that there would be only light. Shining out, then shining out.
Perhaps only places of light can hold them, within.
You only fell in love with me, when I was strong enough to be the dark that rotates the light
within me, then within you, then within me,
but all the oceans ran aswirl into the sea caves and adrift onto reefs when my light was slow to return,
to the pound and drag of gravity greater than wind, the pathways of porpoises and anemones.
You did not know that night would cease as day would come.
But return it did, to the overboard, stranded upon the broken pieces of raft that held no name,
in debri and to those floating face down, wrapped in faith as thick as seaweed.
The waves stroking their hair become tentacles. Their lifeless fingers gripping the little bottles.
Their lips tasted of too much salt. Their eyes of lava, archipelago, molten rings of islands.
So many currents, blistered knuckles, moons and winds, silent passages.
Waves flipped over by blue whales. Green banana fruit yellowing beneath the sails.
With a flicker of emerald and a glint of mirror, the mermaids returned and took them down,
with their eyes as mournful as cragged rocks, the gull's song in their hearts.
That is how I pictured the moment. Where all darkness was resolved in light.
The dead and living combined. And the lost come to shore to rest in the sand.
Until the tropic birds plundered and dived through the wind, plundering the upcurrents.
Until the steady pouring down of sun. Until my white light, my upright marker was known.
Until all the tempest and treachery was dissolved. Until there was nothing but love to be treasured.
It was the Bay of Islands speaking. It was as if the world might be this way.
