Photo by J. J. Harrison
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
Lighthouse watch above the sea—
The visible was perishing
Invisibility the moving wave
I saw a child whose brain discharged
Lightning struck her frontal lobe
Time and time again
A big storm spun the hemispheres
Where surgeons cracked her cloud-white skull
To see the waves emerging there
Like some helpless ancient gods
They slammed the trapdoor over her
Above the central whirling storm
It will take a year to stop
Or else she will be ever wrecked
And nothing can be done
There was a dark room, walls she sat among
A crowd of six
Who watched her as she waited
Do not look at me, but darken me
For the scar across my head is long and deep
Let no one to see it
But four were there, held up their wings
Kept vigil on the white-capped sea
Not helpless but the ones who cry like sea birds
The fulmar and the albatross
The petrel and the kittiwake
That drink salt water
Two days not more the sea birds dipped and drank
Sipped the ocean, spun aloft
And sailed above the hurricane
And then she said: put on the light
Part the blackened shades, let them depart
Like wings above a wave
I saw and heard myself, for I keep watch—
The storm was still
And the child spoke
These are four birds: the fulmar and the albatross
The petrel and the kittiwake
That drink salt water