Two After Georgia O'Keeffe, by Marjorie Tesser

Cliffs Beyond Abiquiu, Dry Waterfall, 1943, by Georgia O'Keeffe (USA) 1943

 
Dry Waterfall I
 
Once, 
a deep pouring--
 
striations sluiced    a ledge 
the current bubbled up
            and over--
soaked stone glazed    
     coral, saffron, ochre--
 
now, 
     grey, taupe, and bone
            (below, a hint of rose).
 
     Oysterless   shell
     scraped   womb
     ragged   husk, empty
     hands   cupped 
            (some beauty still).
            
Still, a storm might flash
a flood    to rush
and bathe the rocks,
tease from them 
deep oranges and golds,
spiral down to swirl 
     in secret pit below--
 
when sun ascends, 
to puddle, dissipate, seep--
as atoms evanesce to air, 
            (again to sleep).

**
 
Dry Waterfall II
           
O’Keeffe was fifty-six when she painted it, 
as I was when I saw it, child-free, adrift, along
on my husband’s business trip. Not the fecund
estrogenic blooms I’d thought of as her art.  
No languid curves, but angles, planes; no
vibrant violets, reds, or golds, but grey and beige--
post-menopausal art. But at the low centre of the rock
is a cleft, rosier than the cliff face above, sheltered
between slopes of muted lavender. The stark rock,
emblem of age, yet holds echoes of of the arched
stamens and the turgid pistils of her brilliant buds.
She was to paint for thirty years thereafter. 
Look closely—in the tiny crevasses bright growing 
things cling green, down at the base of the rock.
 
Marjorie Tesser
 
Marjorie Tesser’s poetry and prose have been published in SWWIM, Cutleaf, and other journals and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, one a Firewheel Chapbook Award winner. A former attorney, Marjorie earned her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and received the 2019 John B. Santoianni Award from the Academy of American Poets. She has co-edited three anthologies of poetry and prose and is editor-in-chief of MER-Mom Egg Review.