A Story No One Told

[Hook] Picture life etched in stone Life sketched in poems On sidewalks in dry chalk next to homes Picture all you’ve left alone And kept in reflections shown Your dome sketched in subjective tones Picture life on a sidewalk Frame it - so all view All you’ve ever felt Try to name it - its called you Picture it In the space between steps It’s the grace between breaths And the message in this make-believe text Picture … [Verse 1] God exhaled The moon shivered in a blue river Stardust fell Through space released and gave its peace To a man in his place beneath Graciously as he laid asleep Draped in sheets With his honest wife In the gold days of his old age And on this nice August night His soul raised He saw this light - the calmest bright - Like Coldplay, it was all yellow And in its gold rays, he saw his plight As it showed him the youth that he’d forgot about Like how he block the spout on his house’s hose And not let the water out He thought it out and wondered How he’d remembered it all? How younger he’d enter the halls When summer surrendered the fall Then he wondered was his life through? In slumber under this bright moon? Like skies after thunder, the light grew And more from the limitless stash of images flashed And poured from the reservoir to mimic his past He saw himself with his wife growing old His children’s lives He filled with pride as the light showed his soul Then it’s brilliance died … [Verse 2] And it was dead black in his eyes A voice said that it was time But he was steadfast in his mind So he said back in reply “Please! Seeing my life like this It made me think I could state succinctly everything life is If you gave me ink And I could maybe print every speech and thought And release my plot on these streets I’ve walked With a piece of chalk To paint the sharpest image of a heart Cuz as much as art can mimic Nothing’s as real as a life told from start to finish” Suddenly the man awoke with a violent cry That strangely didn’t seem to disturb the silent sky His wife was still beside him under the blankets enclosed And when he looked up at the clock he saw the hands in it froze So the man just arose, put his hands to the roads And began to compose the most candid of prose… [Verse 3] So he wrote every quote spoken And left every breath kept Sketched in the next step of concrete Then Death crept and lead him to his bed As the sun began to rise He titled his surprise “The Story of the Man that Died” Then his wife and the townsfolk awoke and were shocked First by his passing, but then by what he wrote with his chalk They got the roads blocked by a flock of postmen and cops He wrote from his lot to the edge of town close to the docks Where he used to watch the boats and often joked with his pops His folks had not long ago passed and now both with him walk People came from everywhere They read the story through for days It wasn’t nothing new or strange Still they were moved and amazed It wasn’t the places he’d been or the people he’d met It was the spaces between and the secrets he’d kept They wept joyfully, for the greatest story no one told Was just the story of an ordinary man growing old [Hook]