vincent in august, 1888 - gerald locklin

[somethingvague7]

his vision slices toward the
golden loaves of dumpling grain,
and the un-domed sky rings in his
head: "oh my god, i am happy!"

now he will not have to die,
because trees with hairs on end still manage
to stand upright almost sempiternally and
ridges of blue mountain suggest erosion

and roses will invent a new redness
while chlorophyll will unfold into a
rainbow of things green. gates may
swing open, also, and a man may

emulate stone and the cicada
simultaneously, erect walls that
will not crumblecake and a roof
that sheds the seasons, and a

chimney as valve for the oh-too-often
overheated furnace of the passions.
windows also swing open
smudges of smoke on the

aquarian-agarian sky do not short-
curcuit into harvest blazes, the
torching of which we have inhaled
and are in-hoarding for the ritual.

how can such amber ecstasies
calm one like cortisone? how is
it that i hear the aphids celebrating
all that has been brought out of the

earth? how is it that at last i
can hear everything? how is it
that at last i can hear god?
now that i hear with my eyes

and see with my skin, now that i
am the turning of the year, now,
god be thanked, i know i need not
die: i know that i will never die