the lighthouse

[Jim Steele]

I won't lie, it was your username that attracted me to this thread originally, but I really like this poem. Grew up in a wet, seaside climate and now live hundreds of miles inland, so oceanic imagery holds a special set of emotions for me to begin with. The idea of a port in a storm is a familiar one, but you made it your own here. I liked how the first half of the poem was extremely turbulent and dominated by the storm (I especially liked the part about "those watching above" being unable to differentiate between pain and love), but the second half seemed to slow down and focus more on the topic the storm was a metaphor for - almost like the "lighthouse" was having the desired, stabilizing effect on the narrator. This transition drove home the point about the "lighthouse" being the narrator's savior.