—Vincent Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

 

Far recess of the barred garden
inside the sanitorium, Saint-Remy-de-Provence.
Tangled vines and trunks in darkest greens and grays
clumped sprays of flowering weeds, daubs of dirty white.
No vistas, no horizon, no slants of perspective to vanish into.
Just a trace of perimeter path bounding the top edge of the frame,
the view cut off at shoulder height, as if he cannot will himself
to raise his head. No orderlies in sight, but imagine
the gravel crunch as they pass by, checking on the artist
at timely intervals. Look, even here, this darkest
dead-end of despair, his urge to sustain the craft
with materials at hand, discover form and texture
in uncultivated growth and decay, pungent life cycles
hiding in shadows, redemption in the smearing of his paints.

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Robbie Gamble (he/him) is the author of A Can of Pinto Beans (Lily Poetry Review Press, 2022). His poems have appeared in Post Road, Salamander, Sheila Na Gig, The Sun, and Whale Road Review. He is the poetry editor at Solstice Literary Magazine, and he divides his time between Boston and Vermont. More at: www.robbiegamble.com.

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