Childhood Squiggles

"It took me 4 years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child." - Pablo Picasso

Can you comprehend
Those innocent squiggles?
Rainbow colours that glare at us,
Skirting across the once fresh sheet.

And even you and I
Were once children,
Foolishly tampering with oil colours and acrylics.

Beauty in simplicity was what
We perceived.
And colours were strewn
From the careless motion of our brushes,
Randomness with a meaning
Only we would understand.

Yet we wanted to grow up too soon
And we lost those brilliant ideas
That only remained in childhood
As complexity filled our minds.

Alas we did not take childhood with us
As we grew up.

We forsaked those childish squiggles
I can never manage those wondrous swishes,
Much less understand.
No return to childhood to explain
The child genius' work.

And I could never go back
To my simple palette.