The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter (Poem by Heather Smith)

THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER'S DAUGHTER

 

My father left me this:

a tower, a light, a book of instructions

for keeping others from the rocks.

Nothing about keeping myself from drowning.

 

Each night I climb the spiral stairs,

polish the lens that multiplies my light

into something visible from distances

I'll never travel.

 

Ships pass in darkness,

trusting the rhythm of my beam—

three seconds light, three seconds dark,

reliable as breathing, as heartbreak.

 

I know each captain by their horn,

each vessel by its shadow on the water.

They know me only as consistency,

as the thing that doesn't fail.

 

In storms, I burn brighter,

my light a shout across the water:

Here is danger, here is safety,

here is the line you must not cross.

 

But no one asks who lights the lamp,

who winds the clockwork, who stays awake

through the kind of nights that make

sailors pray to gods they've forgotten.

 

I've guided home the fishermen's sons,

the merchant vessels heavy with cargo,

the lovers returning from elopement—

everyone but myself.

 

Sometimes I think of letting the light die,

just to see who would notice, who would come.

But then I hear the fog horn calling

and climb the stairs again.

 

There's a logbook where I write:

Tuesday: two ships passed safely.

Wednesday: storm approaching from the east.

Thursday: I am twenty-seven and alone.

 

That last entry, always crossed out,

replaced with wind speeds, barometric pressure,

the things that matter to the living

who still believe in shore.

 

The children in the village think I'm a witch,

see my light and cross themselves.

The women pity me. The men forget

I exist below the lamp.

 

But here's what they don't know:

some nights I switch off the light

and stand in darkness so complete

it feels like before birth, after death.

 

In that darkness, I am not daughter,

not keeper, not the thing that saves.

I am the rocks themselves, the danger

everyone is taught to avoid.

 

Then dawn insists, and I become

useful again, needed again, the woman

who keeps the light that keeps you safe

from everything but her own darkness.

 

They'll find me here one day,

hand still on the lamp switch,

and wonder why I smiled at the end—

not knowing darkness was my only lover.

 

Until then, I polish glass,

I fill the oil, I climb the stairs,

I burn and burn and burn

so you can find your way home.

 

Remember this, when you reach harbour:

someone else's drowning kept you dry.

Someone else's darkness was your light.

Someone else paid for your safe passage.

---

From Dorothy Campbell's personal notes, November 1997:

Heather brought this poem today and couldn't read it herself. Her voice broke on the second stanza, and she handed it to Alice to finish. By the end, Alice was crying too, and Peter had to take over. I've been running this circle for ten years, and I've never felt a room go so still.

Tom said it reminded him of his mother—how she kept their family together after his father's death, burning herself out so her children could have light. Alice saw her years at the library in it, always helping others find what they needed while never having time to read for pleasure herself.

But we all knew Heather was writing about something deeper. The line "someone else's drowning kept you dry"—that's not metaphor. That's her reality. She's been drowning since childhood so her children could have a mother, even a damaged one. She's been keeping the light on while dying in darkness.

When I asked if she wanted to talk about it, she just shook her head and whispered, "The lighthouse keeper's daughter doesn't get to leave the lighthouse."

I wanted to tell her she could leave, she could stop, she could choose herself. But maybe that's naive. Maybe some of us are born to tend lights we never chose, in towers we can't escape. Maybe the only choice is whether to let the light die or keep climbing those stairs.

This poem will haunt me. It should haunt all of us.