Memory has doubts. I Googled 

The image and sure enough the photos

That came up showed it was white.

But the photographer had claimed it

As her own: a smoldering scarlet as she 

Pressed the shutter and the same

When it came out as digital file or print. 

It was the famous postcard lighthouse

As painted by the tail lights

Of departing vehicles. 

                                       Rising stark 

On the horizon of the Batanes hills,

Over the green brush of cogon 

And cadena de amor caught in the gleaming 

Starlight and the sparkling curtain

Of the Milky Way between shutter-priority

Clouds as if brushed blurry on two sides 

Of the frame, Olen’s “My Red Naidi Lighthouse” 

Was almost dead center. It had acquired 

Or radiated its own magic being red,

And in its own moment had 

Dispelled my memory’s doubts.

 

                                                         But,

It has been said, in courts of law

Or psychological tests (or under

Gaslight), memory is selective. Who is

To say the Naidi lighthouse is not red? 

There is a photo showing it is. And it’s 

Magical, in fact! But there are other pictures

Showing it is white. 

                                  And how do we know

It’s the same Milky Way we see coruscating

In the night sky behind the lighthouse, 

Made visible by aperture or shutter priority 

Or the lowest ISO, when many of its

Pinpoints of light might have been 

Extinguished in the intervening 

Lightyears?