On eighth and oak ,
stood a man gray cloaked-
next to a lantern’s flame,
perched on a dying,
rotted,
lamp post.
In the lightest of rain.

Many men would come,
with the rising sun
to make the city white
with electric lights that line the street.
The man gray cloaked is becoming soaked
from the rain and sound of change,
charging like a runaway train.

Onward he walked and to himself he talked,
muttering, mind sputtering.
The flames he sees will not long be,
there, for his mind to stare or conscious care.

The man gray cloaked tips his hat then back,
to the pretty passerby who caught his eye,
she must be of sixty, maybe of sixty and five.
Sixty and seven and on his way to heaven,
the man gray cloaked hung his cloak rain soaked
above the fireplace and raced to the window,
to see the end of three hundred flames lining the street,
become defeated by bright white.

The past is becoming out of sight this night for forty years ago,
during snow, the man gray cloaked was coldly soaked
as he and a team of three installed the glowing beams of candle light
perched upon wood that strongly stood- for decades.

The time was three and the sun soon came,
the dawn of a bright new day.
The lanterns flickered and kind of bickered
for they did not want to leave
as a man and three came with shovels.
They tore and uprooted the posts that were shooted deep into the earth.
Splintered and snapped,
the posts were thrown back into a giant brown stack,
new black metal supports revealed.
Polished and gleaming,
the future was,
Beaming.
Bright.
Electric lights,
lined the street.
The man gray cloaked turned his head.
Defeat.

The men worked from dawn to dusk
tearing away the past to make the night
of the future bright.
The man gray cloaked was saddened and irked
watching his work,
of yesteryear fall to the rear, of society.

The job dwindled down and the young men left the town,
to drink and gamble,
leaving the old lanterns in shambles,
twisted and smashed became the glass of the past-
a forgotten era that formed the basis of the fast pace,
the train of the present and future races at.

The man gray cloaked was to the giant brown stack and
scraped up broken glass from the lanterns he loved.
The metal towers of a new hour,
topped with new electric gleam shined bright.

The past is out of sight this day,
for forty years ago,
during snow, the man gray cloaked was coldly soaked,
as he and a team of three installed the glowing beams of candle light
perched upon wood that strongly stood.
The man gray cloaked grasped his chest then fell to the foot of the pile of wood.

Clamoring,
then their riot quiet,
when the men returned to work and
sound the man gray cloaked lying with old,
glass in his hand.

The sound of ringing church bells echoed throughout the land.