Joshua St. Claire
On Camille Pissarro’s Self-portrait (1873)
That day was a day like this one:
the first yellow leaf, the heat and cold
at turns. It’s the start of the start of autumn,
Father. You’re getting old.
Father, remember when the August sun
used to turn your chestnut curls to gold?
Now, they’ve turned asterwhite—son by son—
when each day was the day before this one.
The chestnut boughs are full again by the Loing,
where you and the children used to run.
If one stumbled on a burr, you would hold
them: the first yellow leaf, the heat and the cold.
Now, they are going or gone:
the boys and Jeanne and Jeanne
and the chestnut and the smallness you could hold
in two hands in those autumns before you were old.
The spring and summer you sold
in the canvases, was the home
you made for them, their bread and their song—
how their father kept them from the cold.
Chestnuttime can only be recalled
by your brushes. Umber and ochre hold
what goes. Now, a second and third cadmium
yellow leaf is shaking against the lingering green:
a day after a day like this one.
About the Author
Joshua St. Claire is an accountant who works as a finance executive in rural Pennsylvania. His work has been published in several journals, including contemporary haibun online, Mayfly, The Heron’s Nest, and hedgerow.