Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

In my house
in London
I have this picture -
Britain -
surrounded on all sides
by sea water.

And I know
one headland,
have lived on it. This,
in Cornwall,
is all rock that juts

in a skin of green. The sea
is a cut-out of the deepest blue,
then, on stormy days
it lashes up white crests,
gusts with rain: the sea
is darker than the sky.
From the end a lighthouse rises up.

In the door
the keeper stands
in uniform and dark peaked cap
with his black beard
welcomes his visitors.
In my memory I circle up the tall white tower.

Each day
the keeper washes salt spray off the windows;
waxes the wooden cupboard
crafted in an arc; polishes the brass;
positions charts of currents and rocks,
flags with coded messages for emergencies;

paints the wide wall curving up.
At the top -
the light, weightily
stabilised on a bed of mercury,
surrounded by glass prisms,
is captured and magnified and beamed out.

Here are rocks. But
a lighthouse
is more than a light beamed in warning.
It is also the man
who sees black seals dipping in the cold ocean,
kittiwakes screeching on the arm of the wind,

who, his days full of solitude,
reflects on long years of married life.
Then there is the captain.
He sails these Cornish waters.
Year after year steers his boat,
sees the light flashing in warning,

knows that here
under the water rocks ascend to the headland.
That, although he cannot see,
there is a man
who keeps watch on land
who is the lighthouse keeper.