Day 1 / Poem 1

Today's poem is up over at the 30/30 Project page, my poem and those of my compatriots. I'm happy to be able to start the month off with a poem I really like, as I feel quite certain that over the course of the month I may end up posting at least one that feel less ready. I am trying to stick very close to the idea of writing a new poem for each day. 

In today's poem I write about the painting A Wheatfield, with Cypresses, by Vincent van Gogh, and about the experience of seeing it in London this past May, standing in front of it, and underneath that the experience of having read his letters long ago in an undergrad class at CCS/UCSB. And I suppose something too about being in school so close to the ocean, sitting around tables talking, while all the while the ocean was out there, too.

There are actually three paintings by van Gogh of this same scene, nearly identical. The one below is slightly different than the one that hangs in the National Gallery, but only in a few small details.