Lighthouse Keeper
You see, it isn’t inactivity or forgetfulness, on
the contrary; you could call it a responsible isolation,
chosen by you so that the whole of you might exist
in the void. I don’t know. No, don’t stay, the lighthouse
light is tiring, distant, useless.
Don’t stay.
Sometimes I too shift, in order to get the sense that
I exist, from my motionless position to the multi-
motional position of a ship, of a voyager, of a castaway,
to notice, in the night, the importance of my position seen
from the opposite side when our sets, made of carton paper,
are destroyed by the last thunderbolt and the stage is left
with only the dead electricians under the broken staircase
and cut ropes, when the ships sink and angry people gaze at
the empty ocean, like a gigantic zero, in the wrath
of the elements, trying to hang onto a plank, because,
of course, they can’t get a hold of the lighthouse rays.
Manolis Aligizakis 