Starry Night

(Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh, 1853-1890, Dutch
Post-Impressionist painter)

Van Gogh painted this scene from the window of his room in the mental asylum at Saint-Rémy thirteen months before his death.

At least three poets have written about this most familiar image. Each speaks from a different point of view. All empathize with the artist’s anguish.

Anne Sexton puts herself in the mind of the artist. Later, she would make the same tragic decision as van Gogh, and take her own life. Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, on the other hand, stands outside the asylum and looks up at the celestial wonders. Don McLean writes an elegiac tribute to the artist. He put the verses to music, creating a hit song across the world.

To listen to McLean’s performance, accompanied by a slide show of van Gogh's paintings, click on this link (you may have to cut and paste it):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OtK_sP6_fM&feature=related


THE STARRY NIGHT

“That does not keep me from having a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.”
~ Vincent van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.

~ Anne Sexton (1928-1974), American poet


THE STARRY NIGHT

What laughter booms across the night sky
from the bellies of heavenly beings? Few hear it,
but sometimes the breath of heaven curls like a bard’s beard
and what has only twinkled begins to beat and throb.

Behind it all a drumbeat calls over the mountains.
The villagers think it’s thunder, those who are not asleep.
Only a few remain awake to see the starry, starry night
and witness what they can barely imagine how to tell.

Some nights the roar breaks the silence. One was there
when it happened, and saw, and tried to tell the secret,
and died young. How much of life he gave for this
we cannot know. We know only that something precious
as nard* was poured out at the foot of these hills,
the blue, the yellow bought with solitary tears.

~ Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, born 1949, American poet and essayist

(*nard - costly aromatic balsam)


VINCENT

Starry, starry night,
Paint your palette blue and gray,
Look out on a summer’s day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,
In colors on the snowy linen land.

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen,
They did not know how,
Perhaps they’ll listen now.

Starry, starry night,
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze,
Swirling clouds in violet haze,
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of China blue.
Colors changing hue,
Morning fields of amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand.

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen,
They did not know how,
Perhaps they'll listen now.

For they could not love you,
But still your love was true,
And when no hope was left in sight,
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

Starry, starry night,
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can’t forget.
Like the strangers that you’ve met
The ragged men in ragged clothes,
The silver thorn, the bloody rose
lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

And now I think I know what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
They’re not listening still,
Perhaps they never will.

~ Don McLean, born 1945, American singer and songwriter