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Showing posts from January, 2025

Cher Ami

  For this first month of a New Year, I thought I'd do a first of my own, with a second.  What I'm trying to say is that this time for the first time I'd offer you two poems. I'm happy to say they're both quite short. Actually they are a pair anyway. A pair of chairs. Van Gogh's painting of his own chair is probably better known than that of his (for a while) friend Gaugin's. I've always found that humble little empty chair backing into its corner with the box of onions and simple tiled floor nothing less than poignant.  Gaugin's chair however with its arms is slightly grander: here we have not one but two light sources, a couple of books and what looks like a carpet. But neither chair is upholstered – they're both essentially basic, sharing certain similarities. Seen as a pair, they make suggestions about friendship – about welcome, suitability and preparedness; while at the same time, they both speak of absence – not just temporary, but al...