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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Orange (the color) (11/19/09)
Author’s note: Ekphrasis is basically poetry confronting art. It is, in its basic form, a literary description/commentary on a visual work of art. The following poem is my interpretive commentary on Vincent van Gogh’s “L’Enfant a l’Orange” (The Child with an Orange).

My name is Orange
I’m not alone
I’m in soft hands
He holds me free

His hair is blond
With streaks of brown
Both eyes are blue
Just like his smock

His cheeks are warm
He’s not been well
That’s why I’m here
To try and help

The sun is high
A healing sky
Green grass is crowned
With butterflies

My name is Orange
And like Van Gogh
I hope to see
This young lad grow

He has been sick
His cheeks are red
That’s why I’m here
To die instead

My name is Orange
And if he peels
My skin away
He will be healed

“Please eat my fruit
So you can stay
And paint a smile
On summer’s day”

The grass is high
Now crowned with life
The sun is bright
My tree is light

My name is Orange
Was plucked to help
Right off my limb
For someone else

His eyes are blue
Just like my sky
I tell the truth
I don’t ask why

My name is Orange
Was born from light
Please peel me now
And eat my life



A note of ministry: The irony of this piece is that Van Gogh painted “A Child with an Orange” in June of 1890, about one month before he shot and killed himself. The life he created with this painting, and many others during the same period, were not enough to overcome his emotional challenges. Van Gogh could observe life and transpose it to canvas, but not to his own heart. God wants to reach people’s hearts. It is not enough to just see and tell, that is what news reporters do. Christians are ambassadors of Christ Jesus, “… as though God were making His appeal through us.” 2 Corinthians 5:20 (NIV).

“Please eat my fruit
So you can stay
And paint a smile
On Summer’s day.”

You can view the painting at: http://www.vggallery.com/painting/p_0785.htm
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This article has been read 1111 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Lollie Hofer 
11/27/09
I enjoyed everything about this piece...the educational bit at the beginning, the poem itself and the value of the orange to this young boy's life, and the last stanza wrapped around scripture. Well done!
Colin Swann
12/01/09
Very different and intellectual. What a wide range of articles we get in here and such a wide range of talent too.
Jan Ackerson
12/02/09
Outstanding! Thanks for the link to the picture and for the note at the end, both of which lumped my throat a little.
Margaret Kearley
11/26/10
I've just been very moved by reading this- (I'm rather out of date,just a year too late!) I love the poem, the observations, the message from 'the orange', the picture itself. Most of all I love your yearning final comments that it is never enough to just 'see and tell' - we need the 'eue-opening of God through the Salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you so much for this.
Margaret