On walking through the Paul Revere Mall, near dawn in early May

Every lonely foot-scuff whispers dull

in the gray prelude to morning,

the flowers of this month have found

no purchase amidst these barren bricks

and wind whisks trash briskly past.

But, rooted in marble - the loaned mare

and the midnight herald, severe

in the gloam before this chilled dawn,

chiseled mid-step, the van in a

parade of haggard linden trees

Seated above the prado depths,

the flood-bathed white trinometry

of the nation’s first watchtower,

precious notion of liberty

clasped like a crackled scrimshaw heart

nestled between lead-quarried panes.

And, installed at the foundation

of the church - this wide net of chains,

a dog tag legion of our lost

set swaying by each cool gust,

sounding an aeolian song

of dangling, jangling sheet-steel.