I. the raising of Lazarus 1890

                They move quickly

                past your 'Lazarus'

                hanging in the too white room

                with the sunflowers.

                they cannot bear it, Vincent

                Perhaps it is the crimson lake

                tangled in his beard, or

                what you have done to the sun

                but they have no stomach for it.

                They cannot abide that looming

                green sister and her blood

                handkerchief.

II. garden of St. Paul's hospital 1889

                Yet we are all held, transfixed

                by the redblack of the asylum

                gardens and the puddles of light

                on a stone path where

                chiaroscuro men stand

                hunched before the autumn hulks

                Surely these are not trees

                rooted in the garden

                twisted so,

                these must be the inmates

                shuffling in the darkest weeds,

                these must be the prisoners