aware of your imbalances, threatened

by them yet assured with maddening realism

that the doctors would know, and you could work

Paul wrote to Corinth

of different aspects of

equal glory; while one

may lack faith, another

is in need of healing

You may have thought of the asylum

as a pulpit, or as a place of prayer,

your Gethsemane where you could

ask God for his hand in color, composition

a trace of sunlight reached to you

and you might have wondered

if your trees would wait or if nature

would tire and need rest before you emerged

Paul, writing to Corinth

may have wished

he could cradle your head and

whisper, "Dear Vincent,

God provides gifts.

The gifted provide God."

You never saw the face of the apostle, but

in the tabernacle of his name took up

his quill, writing epistles to your provider