Family Photo

Some days I find myself thinkin

bout the times I’m walkin down the street,

down the Vegas strip, ‘cross Disneyland,

and I wander into the background

of someone’s photograph.

I wander and I wonder

bout how many families’ photo albums

I’ve become a part of,

and that somebody somewhere’s gonna point at me and say

Look at that guy.

Who’s that guy?

Some days I find myself thinkin

bout the way you said you’s lookin for God

and the way you say he foundja.

I wander and I wonder

if there’s any better gauge of where you’re going

than where you been.

and if a photograph is memory,

then forgettin the almighty’s gotta be a sin.

Some days I get to wondrin’

bout the slams and mics left open on the stage

and the people in the crowd who murmur

“Mmmm” at the words as if they really get it

and maybe they do, I dunno.

I wonder and I wander

to the stage and say my lot

as if there’s any better gauge of what you got

than what you got to lose.

Some days we lose the thread of the rhyme

like an old librarian at storytime,

blankin’ on the details before a crowda kids,

who take the mic away from him

and start in on their own

about the trip they took to Disneyland

and how their daddy took a family photo

and in the background there I was.

And they point at me and say

Look at that guy.

Who is that guy?

Who is that guy?

Some folks they get to missin’

so they flip through old photos

but don’t find what they’re wantin’

an old friend, an old love, a grandmother, a father.

Instead they find me

and they point at me and know

that there ain’t no better gauge of where you been

than where you got left to go.

And that’s when they say they’s lookin for God,

and that at last He’s found em.

But the truth is that the angels’ horns

got no one left to sound em,

but the mp3’s on shuffle so

who needs angels’ voices

when you gotcher iPod?

And as for you,

you can keep your god.

Cuz there’s some days when those folks

need sumthin more than just salvation

and on those days who’s to say

You’re separate from Your creation?

like a painter and his painting,

both reliant on the paint and there ain’t

no way to tell who’s a saint

and who’s a killer

till he’s standing right there lookin’

like an ordinary feller.

And there ain’t no way to gauge

how much time any us got left,

so take a photo cuz that guy who’s walkin by,

he could be next.

And if a photograph is memory,

then forgettin’ that person is a sin.

And as for your almighty god…

you can keep him.