Tuesday Poem: Encountering Vincent at the Barnes Collection

Pink Sky
after House and Figure by Van Gogh

Night shape-shifts into day
as a blue man heads to work,
past cottages like hunks of bread
and cheese one minute, like tight buds
another, holding the flowers back, so they dry
on the stalk, never seeing the light.
All night they huddled close
as cattle do in the field.

Now darkness yields
and they’re busy
speaking smoky wisdoms
to the sun, as it roils concentrically,
each seething blade of grass
grabbing at the blue
man as he passes.

Pray for me, he seems to say –
pray for all blue men and
the children they beat
under sharply-pitched
green rooves.

Tuesday Poem: For the Winter Solstice

Little Bird Returning

O my soul,
have you come
back bearing an olive branch?

Flimsy scout,
have your flights
brought us any closer to light?

I’ve been too long adrift
in this indigo dance
between moon and water,
heavy and hollow without you.

Ah, feathery flame,
finally come home,

the mice are trilling love songs
in the great homely dark.
There’s romance afoot
in the ark!

Restless pilgrim, my angel,
this body offers you mystery.
Let go of your fear of gravity,
and give me back some spark.

Tuesday Poem: Childhood Memory Stirred by December's Wind

Sugar Maple

My grandfather shaved
at the kitchen table,
a grumbling soap ritual,
bright sun caught
in a magnifying mirror
and quick lather sweep
that had me glued to my seat
in the quiet that he required
until with a last harrumph
he rinsed in the basin
and combed a few long hairs
across his bald spot.

Some days he’d let me feel,
with a growl,
his soft
newly velvet
cheeks.

Tuesday Poem: A Bit of Yearning

Photo by Katherine Collett

December Poem

O tell me some stories about the snow.
For it's coming on Winter, and all that I have
is the rain and the damp,
removed as I am,
from the cold of the North,
and I feel like a child,
who’s gotten too close to a lamp.
My snowball has melted,
and all that is left is its sad afterglow.