To view your legacy in Amsterdam
Requires an 18-euro ticket purchased
Online with a credit card at least
One day in advance. You never cared much
About popular acclaim, so long as Theo
And for a while Gauguin
Were simpatico with your explorations—
That paint contained always more than color,
That an artist is merely a link in a chain,
That God’s hand worked secretly through your own.
I wonder how you would feel
About The Sower affixed to plastic coffee mugs
And Sunflowers on the sides of a thousand totes.
What would you would say
To the beefy guards who insist
Children visiting your paintings
Must keep their hands at least five feet away?
How would you reconcile your monstrous fame
With the recollection of a thousand cuts and rejections?
Vincent, the light still lingers late in midsummer
And peach blossoms riot just as brightly every spring
Especially in this part of the world,
Where everything you touched has been translated
Into a global economy,
Where descendants of those
Who ignored you or thought you mad,
Sigh in homage to your lemon-yellow visions,
Stand in long queues to have
Five minutes in the company of The Potato Eaters
And the silver steam that rises up
Above their humble meal.
