Georgia O'Keeffe, by Joanna Wiggin

Pedernal, by Georgia O’Keeffe (USA) 1941

Georgia O'Keeffe

I.
 
I wore my black dress. 
I opened your door, 
you were not home. 


II. 
 
I waited for you.
I looked out at the old tamarisk tree, 
the cottonwoods,
at your walking stick in the corner;
I thought I heard footsteps, 
I turned, but found only the wind. 
 
III. 
 
The herbs rested on your counter; 
the jar was labeled 1930. 
I paged through The Road to Shalimar
and pondered the woven fibres against your white wall; 
the fireplace, empty.
 
IV. 
 
I went outside to look for you there.
Past the white ram’s skull, 
the collection of rocks
and bones,
the green bowl.
I climbed the ladder, 
the sky was just as you like it, 
white wisps and blue; 
the paintbrushes, dry. 
 
V.
 
I opened the gate-
past the prickly pears, 
the cane cholla, the
sage brush;
down to the "White Place",
where I knelt and sifted the red sands, 
waiting, hoping, until-
the stars looked down, 
the coyote howled. 
 
VI. 
 
Alone, with nowhere to go, 
in my black dress
I waited, 
the bats darted, 
the owl swooshed, 
the moon came and went, 
still, I waited. Then
the lavender-crimson dawn woke
the desert mesas and whispered, 
in a still, small voice they whispered:
"Pederno.”
The sun rising, 
I ascended the 
flint mount--
and there, 
amongst the ochres, 
siennas and 
umbers, 
under the cerulean blue, 
 
I found you.
 
Joanna Wiggin 
 
Joanna Wiggin and her family currently live in Nairobi, Kenya where her husband teaches. She, in turn, gets to spend time falling in love with the people and beauty that is Kenya. While they miss the seasons of Minnesota terribly, they are grateful for the honor of calling Kenya home right now. Writing and art have always been part of her life and a way to understand the world. Georgia O'Keeffe’s art moves and inspires her. On her fortieth birthday, she made a pilgrimage to her home in Abiquiu, New Mexico, and was able to walk where she walked, stand in the spaces she lived and created in, and look up at the sky and out at the land she so loved. It was a sacred moment of time.