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A Still Life by Van Gogh
Among the purple irises, one stalk
is bent to breaking; several slender
blue-green leaves lift
through a galaxy of billowing blossoms.
One thing rises while another
declines, and who can say why —
isn't that the essential gesture
of everything planted here? I know nothing
with any certainty, the artist wrote,
but the sight of the stars
makes me dream. In a vase of rough
baked earth, imagine an ennobling
of all that stands from day to day,
and all that falls aside.
Copyright 2000 by Brian Powers |