The Grip of January
The lighthouse stands alone,
its light cutting through the stillness,
facing the frozen lake,
where waves have stopped,
quiet as forgotten dreams.
The ships are gone,
their paths erased by winter’s hand,
and only the keeper remains.
In the grip of January,
he walks,
footsteps swallowed by snow,
moving in the dark,
shaped by the wind’s low moan.
The light turns, steady,
a small fire against the cold.
The lake is a stretch of glass,
no motion,
just a mirror of the grey sky.
No engines hum,
no gulls cry,
only ice,
and the keeper,
his breath like smoke in the air.
He’s alone,
the stars his only company,
his task simple:
to keep the flame burning,
to keep watch
until the thaw.
There’s peace in the waiting,
in the stillness that fills the space
between one dark night and the next.
Here, the light is enough.
It doesn’t need company,
doesn’t need anything but the keeper,
and the long, quiet hours
that stretch on,
until the world wakes again.