The Lost Sunflowers

sunflowers

splashes of the sun

with spiky green fronds

dry sticky stems

thrusting from dry red-brown

Provencale soil

a welcome gift

for an artist friend

the succour of the warming sun

a welcome respite

from the cold and religion of Holland

the low lands and wet earth

fronded together

in clasping groups

of overlapping heads

a symbol of spiritual regeneration

a painting with hope

a glade of light

away from the dark forest

of depression

echoing Japanese woodblock paintings

in bright coloured outline

with accented boundaries

sticking out from the surface

in the thick impasto paint

textured like soil

dry, hard, and rimmed

like baked southern earth

on dry bare feet

like the sun

on the driven, parched painter’s face

the black crow wings over yellow fields

the twinkling of stars over a river

with a dark blue sky backdrop

a vision of heaven on earth

framed in a so fragile mind

rocked by storms

but shining on

like the sun