Return to the Lighthouse

It was as she had remembered
Left unchanged, an image unseen
The lighthouse on the hill
The ocean so still
The source of many a dream

Many decades had passed since her sighting
At the beach on that cold winter's night
But the image she saw would still haunt her
Of the boat being tracked by the light

Looking for answers to questions
She visits the lighthouse once more
Thoughts race through her mind
Of what she might find
As she turns the old latch on the door

An eerie feeling becomes her
As she navigates her way up the stairs
With each step that she climbs
She comes closer to find
The answers she's searched for, for years

But now at the landing there's silence
No chilling whisper she hears
So she enters the room
Where what she sees will consume
The very essence of all of her fears

She notices a shadow before her
A silhouette by the house's bright light
But all around her is calm
As she reaches her arm
To a switch that will turn on a light

Now plain as day before her
The once silhouette is no more
Now a ghost of a man
The bones of a man
Left sitting, on a chair, by the door

The light in the room tells a story
As her eyes dart around at the scene
This man was the lighthouse keeper
And his charges were the lives on the sea

She notices a book by his body
Open, with a scrawled note inside
A note written it seems
The very night that she'd been
At the lighthouse, the night that he'd died

It told that the man once a sailor
Had once witnessed a drowning at sea
Such a terrible sight
He was drawn to the light
Of the lighthouse to watch over the sea

On this night, the night of his passing
The black sea was unusually still
The man saw a boat sail before him
A boat that he'd seen once before

Emotions boiled up inside him
And with tears welling up in his eyes
He sat down in his chair
In the silence, hung his head,
The old man he began to cry

Just then, he heard a voice softly spoken
A whisper, directed at him
The voice was that of his young charge at sea
Who had died having not known how to swim

The boy had come to find him
To take the keeper home
The old man's live was devoted to protecting
Other sailors and guiding them home

So too, this sailor was guided
On a sailboat across the sea that cold night
Guided home to the angels in Heaven
Guided home by the lighthouse's bright light

The sailboat the young girl saw passing
Was the final journey of a man
Who watched over her father
And guided him home
In a storm that had battered the land

It was by chance that, that night she was sitting
Alone on the beach by the sea
And it was by chance that she had seen the sailboat
That was meant for the keeper to see

Though perhaps the message was simple
She was meant to be witness that night
To watch as a man who helped guide sailors home
Was himself guided home to the light