Stephanie Smith is just good. Long story short, here's my absolute favorite from her so far:
Sidewalk Pictures
She presses her hand to the glass door
to see her chalk picture
drowning in a downpour.
The puddle of color blends
until it fades
to sidewalk gray.
And when it's dry she'll kneel outside and start again,
sketching butterflies and birds
for all the people who can't see the sky
because they keep their faces to the sidewalk gray.
And she tries to open their eyes
to what's been lost between the black and white.
She covers all the ugly things she can't erase . . .
She paints
sidewalk pictures.
On city streets she draws red trees & purple flowers,
sometime a family with their big pink smiles and their yellow house
and people stop and they stare
well 'cause they crave the change from the sidewalk gray
And she tries to open their eyes
to what's been lost between the black and white.
She covers all the ugly things she can't erase . . .
she paints
sidewalk pictures.
She presses her hand to the glass door
to see her chalk picture
drowning in a downpour.
The puddle of color blends
until it fades
to sidewalk gray.
But she'll paint again anyway.
Sidewalk Pictures is from her Change album.
Stephanie's website is under construction, but she does have a MySpace page linked from there where you can listen to her latest album Waves, as well as clips you can listed to at CDBaby.com. (CD Baby's clips are actually long enough to really experience the song, unlike the 30-second teasers everyone else does. Oh, and if you haven't ever bought anything from CD Baby, I highly recommend it. Great customer service, with an outrageous sense of humor.)
And that, my friends, is today's Music Monday. Have a great week!
