Vincent

Vincent
She hesitates before a painting
breathing it in,
as though she could absorb
the mist of colors there.
The pine wood floor keeps her
buckled to the ground
among frames and history
that could steal her balance
and make her
forget
gravity.
There is no window that looks upon more beauty,
she thinks.
Beauty is understood in these pieces,
beauty is explained by blue eyes who knew everything and wanted companions,
ends of nerves to capture and hold
the red light reflections of poppies
and the green mystery glowing from thin leaves awash in light
that refuse to abandon the warmth of the dying sun.
I have not seen
the weeping he endured.
I have not seen it thicken
his canvass over time.
But there is a roughness that suggests
these were painted
through glassy eyes,
through glassy soul,
who fought back distraction
with absurd determination;
who beckoned him to the pistol;
who held it in his hand;
who retrieved letters
that held
so many answers to unpredicted days.
That day
he traces the corners of the sky
with a heartless passion,
with a love the world cannot nurture,
and a pain it cannot endure.
He agrees when the wind asks
if he will let go of the earth, and does not tremble as he
spills forward,
a mess of paints and soil,
a final chatter of easel falling.
Beneath a shining dome
that conforms
to the blues he wished for the sky,
he finds freedom that does not need
a critic's interpretation.
--CB
(Amsterdam. March, 2004.)