Once someone took his toys and threw them out the window
He took his toys and put them in a pile
He found more toys, he made a tower
The monument swayed on Avenue B
Toys, toys taller every hour
You watch people walk by, you watch what they think
Of a sand castle for a street that has no beach
A tower of Pisa, of pickled cares
A barricade of teddy bears, tentacles and faded chairs
All the dollies on the shelf
You never cared about anything else

What if you weren't any good at the thing you wanted to do
What if every time you tried someone tried better than you
What if every day has a refrain like "what am I supposed to do"
Or "how shall I live" or "what shall I improve"
What if you skinned your throat like you used to skin your knee
Fingers caught in the door, mind gave up to the city
You would think you'd not done anything
That there's nothing you do
Wouldn't you?

Suddenly you see your songs huddled in a mound
Guitar strings and capos and melodies found
Rhymes and applause and the only thing left
When you don't care about anything else
Your pile of songs settled there long after you passed
Someday somebody paused and gasped
At your pile of songs because it brought them back
To all the things they thought they'd do
And all the things they wanted to
And what they learned to love instead
And where they went inside their head

All the songs you fished for and you threw back
They waved along in the wind and the dust
They lived longer than you and made people gasp,
Saying, what a good thing you've done
What a good thing you do
What a very beautiful thing, you.