harbour head · nineteen years · last lit october 31
a third-order fresnel, brass and glass, a hundred and eighty kilograms of nineteenth-century optics. it rotated on a bath of mercury. it could be seen from the headland of the next county on a clear night.
it was decommissioned the year the GPS units in the fishing fleet became cheaper than calibrating it. the keeper's house was sold. the door at the foot of the stairs was sealed with a steel plate and a single bolt.
the lens still turns, fractionally, on its bearing, when the wind catches the small vent in the cupola. it does not throw light. it gathers it instead. on bright afternoons the focal point burns a small black mark on the floor of the lantern room.
field-note: a gull nests in the gallery now. the same gull, the same nest, the rangers say, for at least nine summers.