Christ as a Lighthouse on Fire at Night – a poem by Ryan Keating

                                                        Illustration by Henrique Rampazzo


Christ as a Lighthouse on Fire at Night

I have been a lighthouse on fire at night
projecting extra-ordinary brightness,

not just the borrowed light of a revolving
bulb reflecting through a glass dimly

but a tower on the rocks in white orange
flames protecting the world and dissolving

darkness and cold like an uncovered candle
on its stand. I am. Take off your sandals

to wade in these waters. This is holy ground.
I have been consumed—wood fibers split

open to bleed smoke, my brick and mortar
cracked, and the skies subsumed by spirit.

But I have been remade, reignited to radiate
forever. The heavens cannot contain me.

The waves that have crashed against me
would have crushed you. Whoever sails

these seas can steer safely by my signal
and dance on the decks along the way

until the far celestial shore comes near
enough to wreck your mortal vessels

and cast you on the pier of the new creation,
the immortal frontier of unfading light.

Ryan Keating is a pastor and writer on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. His work can be found in publications such as Ekstasis Magazine, Fare Forward, Roi Fainéant, and Funicular. He is pursuing a PhD in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge. His chapbook, A Dance In Medias Res is now available from Wipf and Stock.