I like lighthouses

the real things, in art,
in poems and songs and hymns.

But I’m not the lighthouse

“Brightly beams
our Father’s mercy
From his lighthouse ever more….”

The next line is about us
keepers of the lower lights
the lights along the shore
that mark the harbor
and the jutting rocks
and the shallows

“Let the lower lights be burning;
send a gleam across the wave.
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman
you may rescue, you may save.”

My little lighthouse in my window
is very comforting to me. My blessing,
my duty in one little image that I see
every day.