Ideas Are Like Stars

　　Ideas Are Like Stars - Mary Chapin Carpenter

　　Today Joseph is sitting alone

　　With occasional nods to the waitress

　　She tops off his cup while she's snapping her gum

　　Making her rounds on the lunch shift

　　Counting out coins, he leaves them arranged

　　In neat lines and circles and arcs

　　She just stares at the tip that spells out her name

　　And ideas are like stars

　　And yesterday pedaling down 4th Avenue

　　Between the stalls and the bookshops

　　The sepia tones of a lost afternoon

　　Cradled a curio storefront

　　And inside the air was thick with the past

　　As the dust settled onto his heart

　　And here for a moment is every place in the world

　　And ideas are like stars

　　They fall from the sky, they run round your head

　　They litter your sleep as they beckon

　　They'd teach you to fly without wires or thread

　　They promise if only you'd let them

　　For the language of longing never had words

　　So how did you speak from your heart

　　Yet here is a box that swears it has heard

　　That ideas are like stars

　　Tonight Joseph stood out in the yard

　　As Debussy played from the kitchen

　　Celestial companions 'til mornings first lark

　　Shone overhead and he listened

　　And who was that shadow there by the gate?

　　Who was that there standing guard?

　　It was only loneliness and loneliness waits

　　And ideas are like stars, ideas are like stars