Lighthouse

Theme:Tribute to a Lost Love -
(although it can be romantic love, it needn't be for it could also be the great love between parent/child -for example -- Parent, spouse, child, relative, friend)

Words to use:intrinsic, shoulder, wash, perspective

Words NOT to use anywhere :mother, father, mom, dad, nana, poppa, grand, wife, husband, boy, girl, daughter, son, child, love, miss, sick, death, die, aunt, uncle, cousin, friend, lose, loss

Forms, ok, rhyming, ok, free verse, ok

At least 16 lines that communicate emotional loss. Don't ell me, show me!

Lighthouse

That steady beam of light
illuminating cliffs and pitfalls,
beating through the darkest nights
the heart of you lighting my way.

You held me on the great shoulder of granite,
let me view with a different perspective
what lay before me. Your words
giving me choices, framing the arc.

Your light, so intrinsic to my being,
dimmed as you clung to cliffs impossible to scale
and I tried, desperately, to help light your way
beyond the horizon where I could not follow.

When the cliff went dark, when storm waves lashed
the foundation, I thought I would crumble too,
crash into the rocks I could not avoid,
sink, broken, awash with salt.

When the clouds cleared and the mists parted,
the light still beamed for the heart of you still beat--
within me now, forcing me to look for myself
washed in the beam of light you left behind.

Once you told me that heart-lights become stars.
I keep your pelorus close at hand yet direct
my own course, as you, my mentor, meant all along.
My lighthouse radiates on some far off sea: and yet, still, inside of me.

Pelorus: Instrument
In appearance and use, a pelorus resembles a compass or compass repeater,
with sighting vanes or a sighting telescope attached, but it has no directive properties.