Pemaquid Point Lighthouse is Under Construction
A painting from Maine and a poem about grief and joy
Pemaquid Point Lighthouse is Under Construction
.
Shingles missing on the bell house roof,
tar paper and orange construction mesh twist
in the breeze like the pink roses above the rockfall
tumbling down toward the steel gray sea. A bell rings
out on the water intermittently from a rusty buoy.
“I’m out on Penbrook Island”—a lady facetiming on
the rocky ledge is corrected by the older woman at her side.
She laughs into her phone, “Nana says it’s Pemaquid Point.”
My mom never got to see Maine. She didn’t live long enough
to hear my nephew call her Nana. She would’ve loved this
Adirondack chair, its view of the waves and the bronze plaque:
In Loving Memory of Bruce T. Braddy who lived to be 91.
We will always be together in our special place. She was my first place,
her heartbeat my first surf, the crash of blood through her arteries
my first song. This feels like a memory, like we sat here together
years ago watching the birds. A man walks by with two toy poodles,
their collars jingle brightly before they disappear behind the rocks.
All I hear now: the familiar song of a robin over the waves.
In July of 2024, shortly after we got married, Brad and I visited Pemaquid Point Lighthouse in Bristol, Maine with his family.
Brad painted the construction on the small fog-bell building in front of the lighthouse. His mom, Karen, and I sat in Adirondack chairs next to him looking out over the sharp edge of rocks that cuts into the sea. It was windy, and the waves rocked against a buoy, its bell ringing in intervals out over the water. It was a beautiful moment, and a joy to be with Brad’s family, who was becoming my family.
Something I didn’t quite expect about grief is how it lives so closely alongside joy; they’re always in conversation. My mom had passed the year before and although we’d talked about Brad’s family trips to Maine, she was gone before I ever made the journey. I longed so badly to tell her about that place, to send pictures and dream about her visiting with us one year. I knew she would be so happy for me. While Brad painted, I considered how my life was drastically changing—as much from loss as from this new beginning with Brad.
The lighthouse is a wonderous thing—the wind is so sharp on Pemaquid Point it’s a wonder the buildings can stand at all. The construction was a sign of the brutality of nature and the building’s fragility, but also of endurance and continued life in such an awesome (awe-ful) location. Our lives are so fragile, and yet we keep building. My mom always said we can survive so much more than we realize, we just have to keep breathing.
Thank you so much for reading!
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What a beautiful poem. Thank you.
I love the way the lighthouse under construction becomes a metaphor for grief, the way it pulls you apart and then you have to put yourself back together again.
The interweaving of past and present is so beautiful, the way the overheard conversation turns to memories of your mother, the way the memorial plaque on the bench chimes in with another reminder of death, and then the "place" of the inscription becomes the "place" that is "mother". The blurring between memory and hope and dream and dream disappointed, all captured in such a simple phrase: "this feels like a memory".
And I think of the way birds are often psychopomps in poetry, guiding the souls of the dead to an afterlife-- but the robin is always a cheerful bird, bespeaking luck and goodness. The way the Pevensie children trust the robin in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
My favorite lines, and the hinge of the poem, I think: "She was my first place,
her heartbeat my first surf, the crash of blood through her arteries
my first song."
I deeply enjoyed this, Alex.
In a beautiful poem, this (for me) was the standout line:
"her heartbeat my first surf, the crash of blood through her arteries
my first song."
Joy and grief are inextricably linked. I have described them elsewhere as different faces of the same coin - which is life. Grief can be denied, obscured, buried - even forgotten - but to do so is to hide something which is central to self aware existence, and if we do not acknowledge it, and accept it, our joys are also tarnished.
Each implies the other.
A lighthouse is a marvellous metaphor for all kinds of things. A lighthouse being rebuilt, all the more so. A fabulous subject for Brad to paint.
As for those rocks - liquidly layered, hot squeezed and warped, tilted and fractured...
Delicious!
Best Wishes - Dave :)