Lighthouse Keepers & Single-Minded Yachtsmen

fill a kettle
light the gas
fire up the elemental

be patient but wary

your minute, personal tempest
           simmers long
before it boils away in a blink

will it be whiskey or brandy
           maybe some rum ...
you mix with your lightkeeper's brew

go slow
take your oblivion
one shot at a time

dose in hand
retire to your porthole
           overlook
what is a lovely view
but only in good weather

this long night ...

Polaris is scrubbed out
beneath steel-wool clouds
in the sparks and soot
there is no seeing the Way

alone, upon dark waves
           persists
a single-minded yachtsman
his gliding and swinging ways
           long lost upstream
his course now sodden and shortened
the gale-drunk seafarer knows
tack with economy
           or be washed away in the rage
drowned in silent eddies

why not open
your drop-splattered pane
call out and invite the journeyer in
be more than a glimpsed beacon
                     to a lost navigator
would he mistake the warmth
the energetic vibrato in your tones
for the sizzled warning
of a coming lightening strike

he's a little further
                     down-current
this rain-pelted mariner
haphazardly jettisoned
increasingly absorbed
   in the turbulent flow
           a waterlogged cork
bearth-less, adrift
aquatic detritus
cast off ... and away
from the high-life at sea

a dead or mast-head
the difference ...
a question of time
and the rising water level

still ... why not open your portal
                               call out the Way

***

All words and images are my own

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