inspired by Landscape at Auvers in the Rain by Vincent van Gogh and Rain at Auvers by Kayleen Asbo
Sometimes when it rains
I forget it will ever stop raining.
The rain, it falls,
it falls for days, it falls,
and the rain becomes
a metric imperative,
insistent as a stop watch,
familiar as the pulsing
of blood in the heart,
a throbbing, a beat so adamant
I forget any other tune.
Did you forget, Vincent,
the rain would stop?
Did you feel inside you
a storm as urgent, as bold,
as the rain you painted
long diagonal strokes?
I can’t look at your painting
without feeling inside me the rain,
the rain, feel it slant across my world
in thick dark lines.
I can’t look at the purples
and yellows of Auvers
without remembering how days
after you painted these hues,
you would take your life.
But how could I vilify the storm
even knowing what I do?
You found in the tumult
light.
You fueled the dampened, darkened world
with ecstatic gold.
You didn’t push the storm away, Vincent.
You let it drench you.
You shared with us all
how struggle, too,
is so terribly, terribly
beautiful.