The Painter of the Stars

A tribute poem to the very special, passionate, sorrowful artist, Vincent van Gogh

The Painter of the Stars

In full lucidity I remember

The beautiful blend of blue and yellow

In the sky, swirling, twirling and spinning

And the cypress growing high in front of me

It was never black

It was never empty and it was never bland

Such a scene to behold, a scene not for the normal eyes to appreciate

T’was impossible for them

A tear dropped from my cheeks and onto the grass below

How lucky, how lucky you were, I thought

A luck you never even knew you had

But I did ...

You saw what all of us never even dreamt we could

The starry night you painted showed to me what the morning showed to the day

Ah, how I still remember one of such mornings

As the chill, gentle wind brushed my face

Opening my tired eyes, I grabbed but a pencil and a paper

And walked into the front lawn

There it was in front of me, a scene of full beauty

The wind swirling high above in the sky so vividly

The trees, with their branches twisted and turned

And the brown of their color blending in with the bushes of the green.

Their rough pattern and surreal shapes all so lucid

So vivid ... so clearly were they separated one from another

The birds, they were naught but strokes in the sky

But their cries resonated within me

Washing me with a feeling of peace and tranquility

The whole scene reminded me of what you once created

A beautiful scene of haystacks on a colorful yellow farm

With twisting cypresses in the background and a swirling gray sky above

With comfort I sat down on the wooden chair on my bright, colorful front porch

The twists and the turns I captured on the paper all so brilliantly

And I cried, awestruck with wonder at how beautiful the world really is if only we could see it the right way

And you showed me how ...

Oh painter of the stars ...

How it makes me sad, how you didn’t know how much you actually meant to people

And how you felt you had to take your own life

Though I understand ...

Though luck and passion you had, what you recognized in yourself was naught but the misery

And the sadness, which you quoted will last forever