I saw your great painting
in New York, on a wall,
diminutive at first, looking
out at me, and I saw you
there beside it with your
sadness and light all as one
in the swirling sky above.

Your life was this black
and grey field of dreams,
but from it, as the painter
possessed your sadder
than sad soul, the colours
shone out, and so did your
devotion to the beauty and
horror of this cavalcade that
marched across your sight.

The gun did its work on your
mortal body, but what is left
for us to see is another body
always rising from the dead
that you constructed in colours
and shades, filled with landscapes
and people and life, and having
an immortal soul that defeats
time to become this eternity
that inspires us all as we look
across a room and see it on a wall.

for Vincent van Gogh

18/10/2022