A midnight mist lies deep across the placid streets—
 

A quiet lie—a perishing promise of what the hidden dawn secretes. 
 

I know.  I am that city’s embryo.  Yet an exile,
 

And thrust by birth and perverse error of the erstwhile.
 

The centuries fell—two, then three—while the void forgot,
 

Until it dropped me here—another sidewalk stain, another city blot.
 

And thus, by treachery, an exile from a time I never knew,
 

When cities and lies and men, and even promises were few.
 

A better season, that.  Free of strict assurance and custody—
 

And free of shackled safety, shield and shelter, asylum and security.
 

Oh, to be where untainted winds still bent the mighty fir
 

That fell before my time, but did my soul inter.
 

Creator of the ages did err to place me so—
 

Or punishes me from righteousness for sins I’ve yet to know.
 

“Time will tell,” in ignorance, my sympathizers say,
 

But time for me has come and gone within that other day.