Harbour Lights

minato no akari ga matte iru

dareka ga okite iru

From out on the water the whole coast is a row of small decisions.

Somebody is still up in every one of those.

It costs a fraction of nothing to leave a light burning.

It has no practical function. Nobody is guided in by it.

It says the only sentence anybody actually needs,

which is: somebody knows you are not back yet.

There is a difference between being missed and being waited up for,

the second is rarer, and it costs somebody their evening.

No one announces it. No one mentions it in the morning.

You simply come in late to a room that was kept ready.

That is love with the volume all the way down,

the version that outlasts everything louder.

Harbour lights. (minato no akari ga matte iru)

Nothing but a signal. (dareka ga okite iru)

Nobody sails by them anymore

and everybody steers by them anyway.

Harbour lights. (harbour lights)

The light was never the message.

Somebody leaving it is the message.

Harbour lights. (harbour lights)

Out for hours. (out for hours)

Burning at nobody in particular

on the extremely good chance it's you.

Harbour lights. (harbour lights)

Anyone can say they're thinking of you.

Very few will stay up.

Harbour lights. (harbour lights)

So be one. (so be one)

For somebody out later than they meant to be,

who has not asked and would never ask.

Harbour lights. (minato no akari ga matte iru)

dareka ga okite iru

Costs you an evening. Costs you nothing else.

And it will be the thing they remember

when they have forgotten every word anybody said.