After Van Gogh's Postman, Joseph Roulin

Wiki Commons

Do you know how long I had been staring?
For hours, focused, never once blinking.
My eyes lost all their liquid; what remains?
Rheum from my sleep, residua of my dreams.
They transform the orbs into two opals.
Milky white gems become prism lenses
Letting in light by way of spectral swirls.
It's through this looking glass that I see you
Flowing through floral walls framed in garlands.
The house itself couldn't contain the garden.
Poppies and dahlias demanded entry,
As did daisies and petulant pansies.
And so there you are sitting in still life.
Your features soon to be frozen in time:
Your face blooming like a plum or peach tree,
Your beard a whirligig of roots and leaves.
Tendrils blend with venules and pistils,
A faint flush with stigma and papules.
You have fused with the house and nursery.
I see no boundaries; this is why I say:
'Sanity is only a paved walkway,
Comfortable to travel, orderly.
Yet, on it no flowers grow easily.'