Draft in the author’s style. This poem was written for Poet of Chilling Shivers to sit beside the author’s own readings, and is waiting for the author’s review. The commentary is a working draft too.
On a rock beyond the harbour where the winter breakers crash,
A keeper climbed the tower stairs at the sunset's final flash.
He lived alone for thirty years with the lamp and with his log,
And the whistle of the gales and the shifting of the fog.
But one night he noticed something that his lantern threw behind,
A shadow that was longer than his own and not the same in kind.
It lagged a step behind him on the spiral stair each night,
And it moved when he stood still, and it froze in the beam of light.
One stormy midnight, when the lamp went out in a sudden gale,
The keeper heard a voice behind him, low and thin and pale.
At dawn the fishermen found the lamp still burning, bright and clear,
And a long shadow at the window, but no keeper, far or near.
Poet of Chilling Shivers · Hear it on the channel ↗
Commentary
A lighthouse keeper spends his life alone with light. This poem asks what happens when his own shadow stops obeying him, and leaves the reader with a missing man.
A keeper climbs “the tower stairs at the sunset’s final flash” and lives alone “for thirty years.” One night he sees “a shadow that was longer than his own and not the same in kind.” It “lagged a step behind him on the spiral stair,” moves when he stands still and freezes “in the beam of light.”
During a storm “the lamp went out in a sudden gale,” and the keeper hears “a voice behind him, low and thin and pale.” In the morning fishermen find the lamp “still burning” and “a long shadow at the window, but no keeper.” The poem leaves it there.