Point Loma's Lighthouse
Eucalyptus leaves,
in shimmering shades of green,
dazzle their charms;
willingly, I submit to the spell
that draws me to the bluff.
There, wedged between sky and sea,
balanced like a glistening pearl
that's been admired
for a century and a half,
she sits four hundred and twenty feet above the water:
Point Loma's Lighthouse—
where ghosts are said to roam.
Beneath her gentle view,
tide pools are seeded with bare-legged children,
all determined to make fantastic new discoveries.
My grandparents are buried nearby,
and as I relax on the lighthouse bench,
I sense their presence near me.
Down below, waves curl around the tip
of Point Loma—
the mark my mother, as a teenager,
swam to each morning.
Here, while visiting grandpa's grave,
as a youngster,
I wandered the lawn.
Squinting my eyes, I scan the horizon,
which, while my thoughts hover somewhere
between heaven and earth,
turns into a vast blur of blue--
I lean my body against the wall of this sentinel
of a vanished past,
and my white dress melds into the warm stucco wall.
Memories from another era
blink through my mind--
like light through a Fresnel lens.
