“Well, I made you take time to look at what I saw…” – Georgia O’Keeffe
1954
she paints the canvas
Winter Cottonwoods East V.
Burnt umber
and raw sienna
render limbs
to transcend
all sense
of sleeping sap.
Within her
smudged pigment,
out of wintry light
emerges
an odd alchemy.
Countless living stems
press into thin air
in a maze of wands.
Even leafless,
slow and steady
respirations
stitch tree with sky
in secret marriage.
2004
she is the canvas
Winter Cottonwoods East V.
I draw in
burnt umber
and raw sienna
to assuage
my melancholy
since leaving
olive tammies1
and silver sage.
I make a pact
to swap mirror
for trees
naked now
beside my bed.
This morning five
purple finches
pried open black hulls,
plainly melding
bird and flower
budding in song.
1954
she paints the canvas
Winter Cottonwoods East V.
Burnt umber
and raw sienna
render limbs
to transcend
all sense
of sleeping sap.
Within her
smudged pigment,
out of wintry light
emerges
an odd alchemy.
Countless living stems
press into thin air
in a maze of wands.
Even leafless,
slow and steady
respirations
stitch tree with sky
in secret marriage.
2004
she is the canvas
Winter Cottonwoods East V.
I draw in
burnt umber
and raw sienna
to assuage
my melancholy
since leaving
olive tammies1
and silver sage.
I make a pact
to swap mirror
for trees
naked now
beside my bed.
This morning five
purple finches
pried open black hulls,
plainly melding
bird and flower
budding in song.
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