Robbi Nester

VAN GOGH’S EAR

“Normality is a paved road. It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.” 
—   Van Gogh


What else would he be doing besides 
standing in a dark field listening to 
a carillon of stars vibrate in the night 
sky’s vaulted chapel or wavering in 
the darkened surface of a river? 
He’d stumble on the unpaved path, 
wishing the spirits would be silent. 
They’d rise in choruses out of the trees, 
the grass, the thick green stalks of irises 
and sunflowers, wheatfields after 
the harvest, trilling like tree frogs,
an orchestra of light, impelling him 
to lay the paint on thick, impasto, 
to shout in loud blues and yellows 
from the canvas. The spirits rap 
on the small drum of his tympanic 
membrane; he harvested his ear 
to make it stop. Prophesy is a burden.

Robbi Nester is the author of four books of poetry, a chapbook, Balance (White Violet, 2012) and three collections: A Likely Story (Moon Tide, 2014), Other-Wise (Kelsay, 2017), and Narrow Bridge (Main Street Rag, 2019). She has also edited three anthologies: The Liberal Media Made Me Do It! (Nine Toes, 2014), Over the Moon: Birds, Beasts, and Trees, which was published as a special issue of Poemeleon Journal, and The Plague Papers, recently published at http://www.Poemeleon.me. She is an elected member of the Academy of American Poets.