(after Van Gogh, 1881-82)
I didn't know that Van Gogh spent
some years as an independent preacher
in the coal-mining town of Borinage.
When his brother visited, he found
Vincent had given most of his clothes
and money to the poor, but despaired
of being able to save anyone. It's after
this period that he determined to devote
himself to his art, saying in a letter
how happy he would be if some day he
could draw the ordinary laborers he saw
there, so that these unknown types would be
brought before the eyes of the people— take
his painting of miners' wives in winter,
bearing sacks of coal on their backs. Bent
over from the weight and clothed from head
to toe in the same color of their burden,
they shuffle homeward at the gloomy end of day.
The earth is cold and hard because of the time
of year. And yet their husbands, brothers, sons
toil beneath the crust, gathering for their heat
and sustenance. Here, where I live near the river,
trains rumble past multiple times a day, carrying
coal across Virginia to Lambert's Point, from there
to be shipped to different parts of the world. In nearby
neighborhoods, like the women of Borinage, housewives
wipe coal dust off window sills and furniture, the rims
of cups and bowls. Fingers and lungs pick up dark
smudges. In the distance, freezing rain; a blue-grey haze,
cross-hatched tracks. Delirium of industry for profit.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
