I have traced your steps for years,
since I first saw your ships sailing
on the sandy shore, still looking as if
they had found their perfect reach.
You sang my madness on canvas
with green fiery torches of trees
exploding from gently rolling hills.
You created the same masks as I
as you painted your stark reality
in cheery yellow and orange,
lying to your brother that all was well.
Your portrait mirrors mine with eyes
that see the world whirl by
in excruciating precision
(even the parts which make most cringe).
When I have exhausted myself,
I comfort in the tenderness
of your brush on the faces of
men and women working
themselves to early graves.
A building for you alone in Amsterdam,
your final work hangs downstairs;
a tangled jumble, swirls and slabs
of pigments and oil, ultimately ugly
from five feet away. Wandering through,
I ended up three stories up and
a hundred feet away.
The wheat waved in the winds,
and the larks took flight
as if spooked by the farmer's dog.
Glorious light from the Auvers sun
filled the space between your vision
and mine. I sobbed for you then,
to have been torn from self
so violently that if
you shouted to yourself
you likely couldn't hear.
Small wonder you pulled the trigger,
because the wheat field you spread
on a table-sized landscape
sat beside the graveyard where
you and Theo lay side by side.
As I walked along, the only place
you could see the field and the paths
was with your back against the wall.
Family in Amsterdam,
too few friends in Paris,
the short walk to the cold
respite of the Church
no longer worth the breath spent.
Nowhere else to go,
nothing else to see,
too little paint left
to try again.
"Starry starry night...paint your palette blue and gray..."
