What Van Gogh Saw

Van Gogh saw
the way our hearts burn
like the pinwheel stars
swirling in the night-mad sky,

the way our spirits,
bent and bruised in life’s field,
reach endlessly upward
like the cypress trees
full of knotty whorls
curling upwards to mingle with,
and plead benediction from,
the sea-waved sky,

the way wild-maned sunflowers
are almost dizzy with themselves
and the power of heavy seed
flaming within them.

Lose an ear,
lose your mind.
Lose your life,

while your resolve scatters
like crows over the wheatfield
and Lazarus forever blooms
under a fiery sun.

RAPHAELLE KOSEK writes, teaches, and celebrates in the beautiful Hudson Valley of New York.