The Night of Wind and Stars, by Charles Halsted

Starry Night, by Vincent van Gogh (Netherlands) 1889

The Night of Wind and Stars

A towering cypress touches 
the morning star, stands guard
over the sleeping town, its
ancient church and steeple.  
​
Whirling winds tearing across the sky
command dominance over the scene, 
push the waning stars aside, threaten
to obscure the brilliant moon.  

Thoughts of suicide enter my mind while I
paint the violent scene from my top floor
window in the asylum at Saint Remy.  

Should my thoughts persist, I will walk out to the
field on the left, yield up my life to a shotgun blast.

Charles Halsted
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I am a retired academic physician. My poetry education consists of twelve ten-week courses from Stanford Continuing Education, in addition to six poetry retreats in California, Oregon, and New Mexico.  I have published eighty poems in thirty-four poetry journals and, in addition, one chapbook, Breaking Eighty, and two poetry books, Extenuating Circumstances and On Razor-Thin Tires.