Childhood Friends (4)

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe

Vincent Van Gogh

Put your vileness up to a mirror and weep.

Get that self-satisfaction flowing out of you.

Satan thought, I am better than Adam,

and that better than is still strongly in us.

Your streamwater may look clean,

but there is unstirred matter on the bottom.

Your guide can dig a side channel

that will drain that waste off.

Trust your wound to a teacher's surgery.

Flies collect on a wound. They cover it,

those flies of your self-protecting feelings,

your love for what you think is yours.

Let a teacher wave away the flies

and put a plaster on your wound.

Don't turn your head. Keep looking

at the bandaged place.

That is where the light enters you.

And don't believe for a moment

you are healing yourself.