The Lighthouse Garden

the house was all glass, domed,
refracted, and the garden was
magnified in it

the pieces were strong and thick:
they trapped the light

inside the light the garden bloomed
large, colours merging into
kaleidoscope, and the one
open entrance, a door into space

and the wordless beam
remembering as it sliced
powerful through the dark
waves bowing and tossing
at its root in rock

ships saw it and
steered clear - it was tall,
unharmed, well-founded

this, long-beached, dismantled
still held its wedged glass
together, triangular
bending the sun, and the garden
radiated from it: a crystal
bower where we sat 
and our voices echoed loud
in its chamber,
heat quivering in lenses
red, blue, and green

rough ropes ringed round
in arbour
caught the flash of its
light in their net
and a carpet of sea-grass
surrounded:
beauty and no danger -

we were the only ones near
to save -

it rested on its plinth
to reflect 
and refract our images in 
light and colour
curve us in its glassy
arms, happy to forget

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