THE STARRY NIGHT

web | The Sun Is but a Morning Star

That does not keep me from having a terrible
                of shall I say the word religion.
                Then I go out at night to paint the stars.
                                            Vincent Van Gogh
                                            in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.

1961

© Anne Sexton
=============================
© E-publisher LiterNet, 04.07.2010
The Sun Is but a Morning Star. Anthology of American Literature. Edited by Albena Bakratcheva. Varna: LiterNet, 2008-2010