Wandering narrow, crooked streets, <br />Past Lavender Place and Forget-me-not Way, <br />Lead to a shop on Looking Glass Lane. <br />Inside, an old cleaning woman <br />Wrings out her cloth, and <br />With stiff, bent fingers scrubs the shelves <br />Until they shine. Softly she rests her hand <br />On an antique lantern, and delves <br />Into her voluminous pocket for a polishing cloth. <br />Untiringly, she rubs the glass and brass, and <br />When she stops, the lantern sparkles and glows. <br />She takes out the glass chimney and <br />Polishes it until the glass can hardly be seen when <br />Inside the lantern. Tired, her head nods in a doze. <br />She dreams of her memories of the past <br />Fragile as images of old glass on glass, <br />Held together by living, aching brass. <br />She dreams of genuflecting on groaning knee <br />In a cathedral holding a crystalline mass <br />For two lovers exchanging vows and rings, <br />One, now, only an image like the lantern brings. <br />Darkness puddles and daylight seeps away as rain falls, <br />Blurring and wetting the window pane, <br />Of the old shop on Looking Glass Lane.<br /><br />Mary Naylor<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-lantern/
