Lighthouse
He chose his words carefully
He chose his words carefully
like a living poem
or like a person trying to be a living poem
which is close enough to the same thing
and he said once that on the inside,
everyone is like an opera
(four hour epics on falling in love
and the death of empires —
— I wrote this down so
I wouldn’t forget)
and at another moment
he called himself
a landfill of lost causes.
And it never mattered to me
what words he used
I still wanted to live inside them
because words have always been my safe harbor
and from a distance he looked
like a lighthouse.
But what is a lighthouse built on
if not a cliff’s edge
over jagged rocks below,
and what is a lighthouse
if not a warning?
I can not say he was right
(after all, how exhausting,
to always be reaching for
the high notes of an opera;
sometimes we need to be the off-tune
melody our father hums
while driving)
And I will not say that he
is the kind of place
where good causes go
to be buried.
But I was looking for safe harbor,
and I could not stop seeing the rocks below
and I could not stop sailing for the light.
Grace Carlson is a writer from Washington. She writes fiction, creative nonfiction, and the occasional poem. She also writes articles on travel, mental health, writing, and books. Sometimes she’s funny, or at least that’s what her mom says. Visit her blog, A Passport And A Pencil.
