A villanelle

(Written several months after seeing The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York City)



A speck among the spinning worlds, I wait.

I  wait for unfoldings of fate, knowing only that, for me, Van Gogh too spoke true:

I can live without love, and even without hope: but not without the power to create.

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Oh, for so many shining dreams I dreamed, it is too late!

The harsh dark horizon of the precipice, once seeming far, now shows close in view.

A speck among the spinning worlds, I wait.

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So many loved ones I have reached for, to share love beside the turning gate.

But I can survive despite the loss of loves I once enjoyed; and be happy despite the loves I looked for—but never found—too.

I can live without love, and even without hope: but not without the power to create.

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I sought for something to believe in, to guide and comfort me during my lifetime’s little date.

But always my heart rejected cruelty and injustice and stingy salvation-schemes that promised to save only an arbitrary few.

A speck among the spinning worlds, I wait.

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The darkness of doubt made me long even more for the light of love, and for fire of delight within the night of fate.

I have been luckier than many; I found a few fleet loves: but though now I am lonelier than before—since I held love once, and all its joys I knew—

I can live without love, and even without hope: but not without the power to create.

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Oh, love!  Love is what I have sought for: the fatherly love of a God, and the passionate love of a girl in the whirl of life as my mate.

But always I was dwarfed by the stars, and wounded with the scars of treasures that flew—and of dreams that never came true.

A speck among the spinning worlds, I wait.

I can live without love, and even without hope: but not without the power to create.


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Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
Written on Thursday, July 8, 1993
Copyright 2011 by Michael L.P.  All rights reserved