Arles

To Van Gogh's lovers –

A young man with a cap,

a girl with ruffled hair.

He leads her down a path through a field with willows,

grass and butterflies,

wheatfields with cypress,

past the flowering orchard

of blossoms – pink and white,

peach, apricot, almond and pear.

They are sheepish at first,

like irises with ungainly stems and floppy heads.

As springtime lingers,

they ripen slowly in the soft sunlight,

until they dream as one –

of a yellow house, sunny lawns,

a path without thistles meandering through a flowering garden.

*

The heavy grey of the clouded sky

over the wheatfields does not shift.

Without sun to shine where they are,

life leads them out of Eden –

they crossover the Langlois Bridge.

Now she is a washerwoman on the bank

he, yet another coal barge man,

sometimes a desperate sower in the field.

Theirs is the cottage with the peasant coming home

and the woman digging outside.

Rough hands, sacrifices unsaid, bills almost unpaid,

their only taste of meat,

stolen glances through the pork butcher’s shop window.

They are seasoned potato eaters,

living from hand to mouth, day to day –

each setting sun, a silent benediction for them both.

*

She is an old woman of Arles now,

his skin, like the trunk of an old yew tree –

the two lovers stand on the embankment of the Rhône.

City gas lights glimmer,

stars sparkle like gemstones –

an industrial and celestial conspiracy has brought the cosmos to earth,

on this starry night.

An unlikely couple –

gaslight and starlight,

send golden paths towards the two

walking arm in arm beside the shimmering water.

The magic of the moment,

dares them to dream –

like romantic youngsters once again,

of their yellow house and orchards in blossom with a view of Arles.

Sincerely, a fellow dreamer.