Frost bites the cobblestones where I walk
Salt crust stays in my coat from the dock
Tin can leans against a brick wall's spine
Catches streetlamp glow in rusted line
That dented spout holds winter's pale fire
Each drop of light a tiny choir
No lens I tended ever burned so clear
This tin lantern brings the harbor near
Ice writes its signature on the spout
This geometry I know without doubt
Thirty years I watched the Fresnel turn
This dented can holds lessons left to learn
That dented spout holds winter's pale fire
Each drop of light a tiny choir
No lens I tended ever burned so clear
This tin lantern brings the harbor near
Dawn courier drops the daily mail
Shadows stretch long and thin and pale
Can still catches each gray dawn's first blush
Rusted curve holds light in quiet hush
That dented spout holds winter's pale fire
Each drop of light a tiny choir
No lens I tended ever burned so clear
This tin lantern brings the harbor near
Night falls hard on this salt-cured town
Lighthouse beam sweeps but can't reach down
So I tend this small reflected sphere
A keeper's work still happens here
That dented spout holds winter's pale fire
Each drop of light a tiny choir
No lens I tended ever burned so clear
This tin lantern brings the harbor near
Tin lantern on the cobblestones
Harbor lives in rusted bones
