Stefanie Bennett- A Poem

 

THE LAST BEACON        

 

My friends , I was left here

To rot, or perhaps go on show.

I’m told how many

Of the museums now bid for me.

 

But then, I who belong

To all and no-one tell you

- Do not believe that for a dollar spent

You could begin to learn my language.

 

Nor for a million times that

Could you crack the code: it’s to do

With ethics. By then, my friends,

They will have defused me.

 

Mankind will do as mankind does. See!

Already you question my authenticity.

My age means not a damn

But this much I’m compelled to say: -

 

For over a century I’ve stood

And performed for you. My situation?

Forget it. A beacon’s a beacon...

Even time’s creed recognises that.

 

Humanity, for a price, constructed me.

I became a sea fortress

With a purpose. At that time

It was so easy to idealise.

 

My inner cogs were built by you –,

So too, my outer dome.

But I, lost in some wonderment    

Supplied the muscle to keep me standing.

 

Still, for many a year

I resented my forlornness –.

The sea mass murmured

Only death songs or depletion.

 

I... your elemental guardian

Looked longingly from

Coast to coast and

Loved your lands with fond passion.

 

Once, when my furnace died

I believed the grief

Would surely kill me. But

The storm-bird took pity on me – and

 

To pass the hours until repairmen came,

She volunteered stories

Of the other worlds – explaining

The customs; ever so odd!

 

For the very first time I heard

Of strategies. Of Warring. Of peace.

I could not familiarise myself

On how brother turns against brother.

 

I asked that the tales be silenced, but

She’d only just begun. Then I noticed

How brine could be changed to blood:

It surged within my brass helmet.

 

And while I wept my metallic tears

I saw them descend to the rocks below.

I don’t mind admitting my confusion...

My simple love waxed steadily colder.

 

On waking, I told myself

I’d dreamed a bitter dream.

The lands that I so yearned for

Were not only safe, but kind.

 

As for the storm-trooper? Why, she’d been

Symbolically demonised by me!

I’d been vexed by no more

Than my inadequacies and low vision.

 

Since I was given a new generator

And was at once restored,

I gave praise

The only way I knew how;

 

Thus... having lit both shores again

With my mighty candle-power

Self esteem grew

In proportion to your distant horizons.

 

However, I who am programmed

Never to sleep, continued

That same dark dream no matter

How much energy I pulsed out.

 

And believe it, I’ve not ever worked so hard!

My range extended

To the end of the sky-line’s skin.

My own life-light, in exhaustion, dimmed.

 

In a turmoil, I sent forth my message.

Never could I have

Imagined my carrier’s reply.

The storm-bird... ?

 

No! She was no more, the albatross told.

A light... no more!

Far stronger... no more!

Had blotted out both bird and sky.

 

It’s not up to me to continue

Your parable. I am ‘man made’

And like my makers

Am on the way out.

 

I offer no solution. Remember...

I’m just a beacon.

A name’s a name, and

It has a way of sticking.

 

Some say I’m wise. If that’s so,

It’s a wise-ness I can do without.

Understanding too much, like

Too little, sends one a trifle crazy.

 

I have my companions. The gulls

And their relations. We have

Removed ourselves from your states

And half states

 

To rest beneath the Southern Cross

And ask that you

Leave us alone, here. Here

In the realm that gave you all.

 

 

 

THE LAST BEACON is a performance

poem. Community Publishers ‘Print

Shop’ printed a limited 100 copies.

 

 

Stefanie Bennett has published several volumes of poetry and had poems appear with

Mad Swirl, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Message in A Bottle, Bijou Journal, Illya’s honey, Shot

Glass Journal, Jellyfish Whispers, Twice Upon A Time and others. She has acted as a

publishing editor and worked with Arts Action for Peace. Of mixed ancestry [Italian/

Irish/Paugussett-Shawnee] she was born in Queensland, Australia, in 1945.