Every Picture Told a Story

[good4somethingbum]

Every Picture Told a StoryCousin Tim gave me that old flashlightAnd said he’d just wait for me outsideAs I walked those basement steps ghosts ran and hidGramma never spoke much of her pastI’m ashamed I never thought to askAll those weekends I spent with her as a kidI looked around and tugged on a dusty old tarpFound a stack of paintings forgotten in the darkSaw a tiny hand bottle-feeding a doeA pig-tailed girl dancing in the snowAnd a young lady picking a morning gloryThere was a blushing bride with a parasolWith her fine young man at Niagara FallsAnd every picture told a storyYeah, I’d heard she’d been a farmer’s wifeWhen he passed she lived a lonely lifeAs the leaves of her youth turned from green to brownBut here she was ‘neath her backyard pineAnd the man there with her pourin’ wineLooked like that cowboy who useta blow through townAnd the smile she painted in her blue eyesSaid love burns deeper when it’s unwiseCos there were two lovers on a riversideLetting their dreams roll in on the moonlit tideAnd drinking all they could of life’s sweet gloryAnd a lady with long grey streaks in her hairRiding all alone on a star-nosed mareAnd every picture told a storyWell, I wrapped those paintings up with careAnd met Tim on the front porch stairsHe was happy with her big town carI was grateful for what was in that old tarpCos every picture told her storyEvery picture told a story…©2007 Robert George