Are these the tears you cry at night, sobbing into your damp, dank pillow?
I heard you then; I hear you now; the teardrops dripping through the cracks on the floor
Much like the cracks in your soul, that strangle you from within,
That make you blunder when you walk--for the gaps are too wide to stitch up.
How is your poor heart faring? It grieves as you grieve, in midnight hours when the world is still
And you are alone with your thoughts and the stars are burning above you.
O stars! Stars in your soul, stars in your heart, stars in your veins,
How they burst forth with a grandeur the world has never known!
How brimming with light you are, dear Vincent, the glow made brighter still
By the darkness you feel inside. How could they have been so blind, so thoughtless?
Shunning you, despising you, forcing you to your corner, to live and die alone--
They called you mad, as if they and the world were sane!
As if mad was the star that chose to shine on an inky winter night,
As if mad was the flower that bloomed alone at the close of summer--
They called you mad, as if you did not belong in this world,
As if they did! O borrowed life, borrowed bliss, how soon we forget
That gifted is life itself, but madness is inflicted--they called you mad
Who made you mad: like a needle that pricks the finger blaming the finger for bleeding.
How your world was a desert, Vincent, but you found trees to grow--
And painted the glorious stars above your head, lined with swirls of golden dust,
And fields shimmering amber in the afternoon sun, irises bluer than the coldest blue,
Visions of your mind. Sunflowers--but dying? Dead? Painting of old men weeping,
Ragged messes of human beings: O Vincent, you fool no one, these are your sorrows,
Slapped onto canvas, breathed to life beneath your tender touch, children of your loneliness.
And I hear your whispers at night, amid your sobbing; your screams when demons chase you,
Demons of your mind; no less real because they are insubstantial, perhaps more real
For they haunt you and torture you, until your heart is sore with weeping,
For there is no rescue, no hope, anymore. Wingless love crumbles at your feet,
Weeping too--for you have loved where no love could be returned,
And hope perishes into ashen dust upon your head, garlanding you
For hope kept you alive when nothing else did. Now hope is gone,
And your paintings watch on, as the fire consumes you,
O if only I could have told you, Vincent, how your sense of beauty would touch the lives of many!
If only I could have held your hand through your nights of hell,
And melancholy days when the Earth was too sour a place to sojourn in.
If only I could have loved you, Vincent, you may not have died
Reaching for a hand that never, never was there.
But perhaps such a soul as yours, bold and bright and beautiful,
More beautiful because of the despair that clung onto you,
Was made for a lovelier, livelier, more wonderful world
Than this dark place that pained and killed you.
