Two White Lighthouses by Julie Smythe

Julie Smythe reads her poem 'Two White Lighthouses'

This poem appears in 34-37 Degrees South 2025 - An Anthology of Poetry from members of the South Coast Writers Centre. 

Fresh words brought to you by the South Coast Writers Centre

Transcript

Two White Lighthouses by Julie Smythe

Two white lighthouses rising high against a blue heron-egg sky. Only one of them guides the way these days to Dharawal Wadi Wadi saltwater Country. Words of warning: another gale alert issued by the BOM for mariners this morning. Already the high tide storm surge is buffeting the Breakwater Lighthouse. A relic now, its lantern dark for decades. Water churning, a sea of greens from olive to neon to deep forest teal. A turbulent tale of colonial times in white water wash cascading the rocks, engulfing the old seawall that they built to keep the seawater out. Up north, rainclouds slink silently over the escarpment, while to the south, Endeavour Drive coils up and around the promontory where workers park to eat their lunch of fish and chips each day. Banksias and sheoaks grew here once, but now it’s buffalo grass, bitou bush and flocks of seagulls riding the currents, squawking, wind-wheeling, squabbling over a hot chip mid-air. Next to the sinkhole of the old fort, screwed to the door of the Flagstaff Hill Lighthouse, a metal plaque with a Latin flourish: Olim Periculum—Nunc Salus. Once Perilous—Now Safe. Fancy words, once, of comfort for mariners and their kin. Wise words, once keeping alight a lantern to past griefs. But the world out there is warming and the wild weather warnings keep sounding. We need no words in Latin anymore, just a simple unsettling, illuminating shift: Once Safe—Now Perilous.