The Smiling Fingerpainter

Heard a song once
About a girl
She fingerpainted a sunset on her TV screen
Where is that girl now
Does she still make time for sunsets
And live her life with no regrets?

There’s a guitar
Sitting in the corner
Is it still mine
Can it still speak
If it stays untouched?

Pen and paper
Unmoved by heart
Or emotion or will
Will these things ever mean
What they were supposed to mean

Notes unplayed
Words unsaid
Ideas not put in the light
That’s a lot like
Fingerpainting fog on a computer screen
How gray would that seem?

Who put these tools here
When should they be used
If not me, who
If not now, when
If not able, why
Not

Can’t you find a palette
In the middle of a puddle
Or inspiration
In the echo of a child?

I’ve seen a smile
That made me want to cry
I've seen a tear
That made me grin wide
I’ve heard a laugh
That made my heart sing
Then split

Knock the dust off
Sweep it in the corner
With the other quiet emotions
There’s enough room over there
To call that corner what it is
And build that pile up
Until it means that
Or this

One time I saw a boy
With the greatest story ever told
Somewhere in his pocket
It slipped through his fingers
When he grasped for laughs

Was it the greatest story never told
Or the way he dealt with growing old

If words were sand
He’d have his own beautiful little desert
"But God," he asked
"Wouldn’t it still be deserted?"

A mind racing
Can be dangerous or wonderful
Depends on the road

And what color is that flag
Red, green
Maybe white
Yellow,
Like a sun you’re not supposed to look at?

What if I said what I meant
And wrote what I couldn’t
And sang what I shouldn’t
It seems a dilemma
Easier to do neither
Then blame someone else
For making it an easy decision

A sunset at midnight
A full moon in midafternoon
I’ve seen them both
They made me reach
For a pen or a guitar
Neither was there
They’re both in my mind’s eye
It blinks and it’s gone
And it won’t share

Some images
Done no justice
By the writing
No fairness
By the chord

So guide my fingers
Steady my hand
It doesn’t have to be
The greatest story ever told

It only has to be
What needs to be said
And heard by someone
Sent out into the firmament
There’s something golden about that
Even if truth can seem a little blue

Yet what is color
But our mind telling our eye
Telling our heart
What it would be best to see
Or seem

If the worst to be said about me
Is "He tried and failed"
Then I could still hold my head high
And be a smiling fingerpainter
Who made it the greatest story ever tried
And the prettiest song ever cried