The little boy stood up
and dusted the chalk from his knees and wrists
and he admired the drawing on the pavement.
Chalk dust had smeared and danced in the wind
while he looked at his tree and the blue sky behind it.
When another boy, a bigger one rode by
and let his bicycle tire cut through the center.
The boy laughed at the little one
and the little one cried.

The boy drew with careful concentration
and Crayola crayon gripped tightly in his small hand
while he colored in a coloring book to make the unnatural possible.
Another girl laughed and tore his page out
saying that pigs weren’t blue and grass isn’t orange.
Everyone snickered and pointed
and the little boy snatched it back and tossed it into his backpack,
ashamed.

The teenage boy painted carefully across his canvas
and let the blue paint drip like pieces of the sky
as he created the ocean waves and swells
and his classmates laughed at him because he wanted to paint
and not play games and the boy had stopped caring,
had stopped hearing the laughter.

The man hung his canvas on the wall
of a fine and elegant gallery
and people came and stared in awe at his creations
and no one laughed or pointed
and he didn’t feel ashamed.
He only heard praise
and now he was laughing.

You're like
The city lights at night
A scratch in music
Exposed for too long
The coast line
A dislocated spine
Dream sequence on repeat
For years in the backseat
Slow guitar
And the North Star

Songs are sung , the spell is cast .
You are young and mine at last .
The world will turn , you shall see .
The snow will burn and the free .

     Find the sun if you can .
   Will they know we exist
     Or will there be any
   To know at all ?  When we come back
     If we do leave at all .
   Will we cry and kiss the soil
     Or will they forbid us entrance ?
   If they do forbid our coming ,
     I fear they do know who we are
   And once again we'll seek a star ;
On which we'll place our weary flesh .
New time and space and skies afresh .

The hats are hung ; atomic blasts .
Where our young arise in flasks .
Our worlds will turn , you shall soon see .
We're sure to learn or we'll not be .