Van Gogh, by Alarie Tennille

Road with Cypress and Star, by Vincent Van Gogh, 1890.

Van Gogh: Road with Men Walking, Carriage, Cypress, Star and Crescent Moon
 
Vincent’s night
is never night.
He drinks the darkness,
tosses a burning tumbleweed
into the sky, sets cane fields
ablaze against the dark flame
of a cypress ­– the road a silver
stream.
 
Vincent’s quiet
is never quiet.
The moon cups an ear
to hear the muffled French
of men making their way home,
the sound not eclipsed
by the slow hooves of a horse
but by the screams
that reach our eyes
in every brush stroke.

Alarie Tennille

Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. She became fascinated by fine art at an early age, even though she had to go to the World Book Encyclopedia to find it. Today she visits museums everywhere she travels and spends time at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, where her husband is a volunteer guide. Alarie’s poetry book, Running Counterclockwise, contains many ekphrastic poems. Please visit her at alariepoet.com.