Van Gogh In The Pineapple Winds Of Heaven Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

(to my Grandfather, Milton B. Young with love forever...)


van gogh in the pineapple winds of Heaven

I saw painting a new yellow house

fronting the stars.


he was there on the planet of lavender

its fragrance was in waves like a sea.

little stars burst in the air like milkweed


their small parachutes beloved by dolls

and I recalled


that summer we took lessons in art

at the Art Museum and watched a film on the Monarch Butterfly

and learned to identify so tenderly


the milky quartz

while my grandfather painted pines.


or painted gourds using the burnt sienna quite freely.

while Grandmother played Liebestraum and he perhaps was dreaming

of an old hammock strung between two trees in the back yard


the fresh mint in the iced tea picked from his own garden


when life got harder for him later

and no one ever told me.


mary angela douglas 25 april 2020