The world silent and still
Fear of the unknown
Rushes through the veins of a small boy in a painting
The disoriented painter causes confusion in the boy’s eyes

The green rushes up
To meet the black
The black
Smeared by the blue
Falling from the pale white
To be lost in the green

The painter comes to rest his gaze
On the small boy
The boy’s face
The last of the color
In the sea of gray and white

He floats through the crowd
And the painter has him rest
In front of the cause
Of this frustrating piece

The boy still to young
To understand the gloomy colors
The painter uses
And why the painter leaves so much life in him

Why must he be kept in the light?
While the other ghostly figures are in the dark

The boy
Never to realize
The true meaning of the painting
Until the boy has grown to be
The artist
Who paints his memory
Of a confused boy
Lost
In the sea of gray
Brushed on the canvas
We call life

Time has slowed
Since the day the painter
Met with the lost boy inside him
The painter’s face
Now filled with shallow canyons
Canyons
Carved by the winds of wisdom

He is now too gray
To hold a brush
His passion at a halt
He no longer shows
The white of his smile
His eyes black
And tired

Once a small boy
In a painting
Full of bright colors
Now an old man
On a wrinkled canvas
Full of grays and whites
He would finally fit
In with the sea of Gray
In his earlier piece

He then finds himself, the painter,
At the black stone
That once sparked his memory
Of a boy
That could not understand

The painter still unsure
Of the meaning of his
Painted memory
An attempt to make peace
His hand is placed on
The black stone

The old wise artist speaks
To someone who has come and gone
“I have done great things in this life
And met many people”
“But you
I never forget”
“Weeks spent understanding
My confusing piece”

“Just now I have come to realize
I was lucky
Lucky to be
The one in color”

He pulled his hand away
From the black
And into the light
A growing white smile
Is detected as he
The painter
The confused little boy
The wise old man
Watches his last golden sunset
Set over
His life’s painting