A Night at Pigeon Point

Its powerful beam sweeps the young night—

The aero beacon goes round & round from oceanside

the tall, white pillar of lighthouse upon the jutted point of cliff;

the dark, nethermost rocks that outcrop into surf,

its moving surface of rise & wash,

all become suddenly illuminated by the sweeping beam;

suddenly, momentarily revealed in its surging, seemingly alien presence

the shiny, ebony back of ocean,

massively alive in that centrifugal beam—

And immediately the aero beacon pulls it away,

guardian night sucked back in,

the stars sing;

and remarkably lined up in vertical descent a rare display

of Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Saturn,

Mercury scarcely visible in the last of the western glow;

and the beam comes round again; the surf surprised again;

then darkness again;

the stars—

The stars are there.

The stars sing.

All night

between the shifting boundary of sleep & waking

the ghostly white lighthouse stood out imposing,

a haunting beacon in the astral darkness

outside the hostel window,

the wide sweep of the penetrating emanation of its single eye

perpetually, untiringly, going round & round,

round & round,

all night.

All night an I dreamed of that tower,

that beam.

May 2002