Wheatfield with Cypresses

An Exercise from Real Toads, Imaginary Gardens // DISABILITY // MOTHERHOOD

Wheatfield with Cypresses by Vincent van Gogh, 1889

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An exercise from Real Toads, Imaginary Gardens (Chapter 2)

Write a poem in which you imagine yourself in a favorite painting come to life. What images from this painting transform when made real? What conflicts emerge for you in this new world of the painting?

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I afix my eyes to some flushing field,
                             and plant my feet on what's certainly real -
                      firm on what I reckoned rock,
        which lies somehow low and soft.

And there those glacier-brushed winds go,
                    gusting in my belly too fast
           and too cold-like to be butterflies, but alas!
     What they say, I swear, I'll never know.

     I'm invisible, so of course I think I'm a stippled blue, 
                    sea green, pearlescent sky
       crooning across lands of spelt and rye, 
        calves of youth grazing golden stone,

but I'm alone down here. I'm looking
                              at a photo in my mind,
                  a moment snatched from upon mid-air,
                             a creased three year old 
                                     at the fall fair,
                           
       these sorry cypress sentinels.
  What are mountains, they cry,
             these clouds? Which words, 
    never spoken aloud?

- Elzada James -