The Painter

At the top of the stairs

Where the canvas lay bare

Lives a man of the Shoah with a brush in his hand

And for seventy odd years

He has fought through the fears

And he climbs up the stairs just to paint them again

At the top of the climb

Where the canvas is primed

For colors and layers you lose yourself in

And the flames in those layers

Singing decades of prayers

For those who were killed by the men in Berlin

And oh there's anger

And oh there's pain

And so he paints

In the middle of sketching

If one were to step in

They'd see a kind man with a song in his ear

And he hums along

So when the feeling is gone

You can look at the painting and hear what he hears

And oh there's anger

And oh there's pain

And so he paints

And so he paints

Though his hips start to ache

And his back is bent low

He won't bear the weight

Still the memories flow

And it keeps him alive

When he's sharing his soul

Though the flames that were raging

Have burned

So low

So low

At the top of the stairs

With his canvas still there

Lived a man who made so much more

With the brush in his hand