In white suit and straw hat
a man is walking toward the sunset
(deep red now)
Just finished his toil of painting
an almond tree in blossom,
a fiery lavender field
and the backside of a horse.
Time-worn and toothless,
lovelorn and broody,
his mind seething with images
of naked women and Zola books.
He talks to the beetles about memories
of himself in other life and other souls.
He smokes a black pipe and his nostrils
sip the scent of rosemary, fennel and thyme,
"Everyone is afraid of me"
-says the man to the beetles, to himself
walking towards a bluish horizon.
Crows, in haste, like shooting stars.
A gypsy caravan passes by to the sea
in merry pilgrimage to venerate Sarah
in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.
Guitars, bonfires, roses, wild dances.
They ignore the red hair man now drawing
the bluish horizon, the shooting stars,
all in the highest yellow note.
"I am alone on an endless
and yellow sea"-says the man
to himself to the crows.
