Cafe Terrace At Night

CAFE TERRACE AT NIGHT (Van Gogh) Orbital focus of assured kindness and hospitality From the waitress in long white apron Where time stands still for a moment, Where the golden interior glow of the shelter Gravitates under the canvas roof and Permits a little topaz flavor to anoint the cobbled street, Its dark forbidding geometry of the night, Its silhouetted shapes of blackened houses Whose dead windows suggest only a half life, Whose clock tower suggests the running sands of time, While dizzying stars, circular orbs of cold white, Stare unblinking at the colors uncertain In a neighbourhood of crumbling age, On the pavement of uncertain difficult cobbles. The café is not crowded but it is the sun For the people orbiting its warmth.