1 Art & Literary Journal Spring 2012 Edition American ... - AUK

The Solitary Reaper of Arles, France
Nur Soliman
He breathed in brilliance, his body was charged and his eyes shone with
the twinkle that must have appeared to others to be madness.
He stood a solitary figure in the fields, flaming hair cropped like a monk's,
gaunt figure with easel and brush and canvas, feet firmly planted
on the ground as he worked in the Provençale fields and vales,
alone, struggling to calm a worried heart in the sirocco, alone even
when he had company, because the lights could become too bright.
The summer-green grass would be heavy with winter rains, perhaps,
magnifying the sky, shimmering as he stood in gold and crimson fields,
ablaze with wheat and sunlight, ablaze with olives and tapered cypresses
against soft tender afternoon skies or bright cobalt nights and midnights.
Before him were the peasants with burdened backs lifting grain,
as he painted all those sowers radiant in the dawn, over a thousand works.
He painted furiously; he fought, but was never to reap what he had sown–
painted to soothe and console that worried heart, a lullaby to loneliness,
Arlesian sunflowers lit like candles for Vincent.
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