The Lighthouse

Peder Balke sailed Norway's North Cape coast and came home painting light itself — thin veils of brightness dragged across near-black seas. This lighthouse is barely a building at all: a pale mark holding back the dark, the way the real lights held back the rocks.

It anchors our Keepers' Room, surrounded by the lamps, logbooks and oilskins of Skerry Light. Keepers' families often leave flowers beneath it; we have stopped moving them.

Balke scraped and glazed his paint until it glowed from within. Step back six paces and the beam seems to move — step closer and it dissolves into cloud and water. Our lighting is kept low here, as it should be.