From the Small Shop of the Color Grinder Comes

wine, and I am all out of it
paint, and I am all out of that
city, and I am going to its center
to the shop of Père Tanguy
to get more of these things.

His shop is open one day a week
a random day
always Sunday.

I can see Père from my house here
on the outskirts.

From my chair even I can see Père
sitting on his stone bicycle
in his low, flat hat
cursing what he loves most,
exhausted.

Père rides through the city
his bicycle never moving
any closer to the door.

On my high-ceilinged street
there are people of a hundred forms,
there are the forms of a hundred people.

The same carriage seems to pass twice
then a third time.
Horses go by one by two.

A woman passes with her yellow chickens,
dropping them grain from her clenched fist.

Her children follow her from tree to tree
climbing til she is almost out of sight,
then climbing down again to follow.

I walk backwards for a moment,
my house falls away
a step at a time.

Turning again it is hard to tell
the road from the fields
through which it runs.
Gradually as I move towards it,
the city builds on the fields.

Men painting a steeple,
the circus of church roofs,
parishioners below.

It is still early
in the market.

Farmers are putting
tomatoes and carrots
into rows on tables.

Flower girls are laughing to themselves,
tying ribbons around flowers,
performing their dresses.

No one is in the square yet to shop,
preparation mixes with the morning here.

Everything in this city
reminds me of Père Tanguy
noise spaces motion
I cannot list the elements.

I hear his bicycle
in the turning of any wheel,
any hat is his.

He has been here it seems
since the beginning of the city.

I can remember hearing about him
when I was a child
remarking to my mother

“It is the biggest horse I’ve ever seen”
And she replying
“Père is a man who goes to bed early.”

–1987
(Inspired by a painting by Van Gogh)