epigraph · from a small bound notebook
the light is for whoever it reaches.
the reaching is not my concern.
my concern is only that the light not stop
between this hour and the next.
— the lighthouse keeper's notebook
the lines appear on the inside cover of a notebook kept in the desk-drawer at the last house on the point. the notebook is mostly a record of weather, of fuel, of small repairs; the inscription sits above the first dated entry like a kind of compass.
it has been mis-attributed, sentimentally, to a long-dead keeper who could not have written it — the handwriting belongs to none of the names on the duty roster. most likely the line was copied by a keeper from another keeper, from another notebook, in another house.
the lighthouse has been automatic for years now. the notebook is still kept in the same drawer, and the epigraph still applies, though no hand has been there to fulfil it. used most often at the head of pages on vigil, ritual, and quiet work.
see also · lighthouse the keeper vigil letter from the keeper