Cape Pine

Everything about the place is singular.
A point at both the beginning and the end
Of things, a butt of low and massive rock

Swathed in chaos that appears as ochre,
Crimson, green, that makes it difficult to say
Whether sea or land has greater mass.

Why the land stops just here, at a shore that
Lunges, plunges, soars, and halts, brings
Only silence as reply. The shore is hemmed

By ocean that provides both life
And death with careless nonchalance. There is
No fire in this elemental mix, but the whistling

Air spurs snow pellets to race parallel
To the horizon, and makes the windward door
Impossible to breach. A tower, striped in

White and red, sits massive and unmoved
In all this flux, a transplant that cannot
Connect, still, to what it stands to mark.

The light yet gleams at piercing intervals,
Establishing a point for all within the gloom
To steer us safely by a fatal coast.

Though light can punctuate and shred the dark,
It cannot banish it at last, and we are
Left alone to navigate the briny film

Or scattered hues ashore. And while the light
Illuminates us here, it cannot shift
The context that will bind us all: the dark.