On the edge of town,
near the fallow gulch,
the tinkerer walked
the row by night,
a shadow amidst the
moistness and moonbeams,
seeking scrap and shard.

His eyes strained
to find
the lost things,
the broken items,
the discarded debris,
marred mementos
from better days,
from happier hearts,
from livelier loves,
from healthier homes,
when fullness was free
and friendship was flowing.

On the edge of town
the tinkerer walked
a shadow
under starlight
bearing scraps
and shards
and other lost things
he found within
the row.

He knew
the levee,
the alleys,
the courtyards,
the lanes
where he crept,
and by moonlight
he returned the scrap
to where he found it
before the birth of dawn
in bouquets
of tin and tinsel,
trophies to
the scintillation
of better hours,
of better days,
of better months,
when all was
new and good,
each monument
shined by his tears
for his lost years.

And in the musty
black-gray
of the
morning half-light,
he skulked back
to his hollow
to sleep,
and wander
in his dreams.