Vincent's Pearls

This world
is full of mysteries
and puzzling things
but where to start
and where to end -
there’s the wonder
of this planet earth
and the universe
that houses it
and all that live
within and move
upon it -
and there’s
Stonehenge
on Salisbury Plains
5000 years old
and engineered
with primitive tools
and minds
whose resolve
conquered a task
we are still
trying to fathom -
and then there’s
Vincent’s Starry Night
conceived through
iron-barred windows
it’s haunting beauty
the gift of Vincent’s
searching eyes –
I wonder how he’d see
us all today
and what his paintings
would have to say
about the things
we see through
shielded eyes -
would they say
as he once did
that the heart of man
is like the sea
with storms and tides
but that somewhere
in its depths
there are pearls –
maybe now
we should harvest them.

Vincent Van Gogh's beautiful 1888 painting of a Seascape near Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Me from Pixabay