—After Georgia O’Keeffe’s Purple Petunias, 1925
Imagine Georgia O’Keeffe waiting for a honeybee
to exit throats of purple petunias she is painting,
looking towards Pedernal with a hint of exasperation
thinking, I should have painted you today instead.
What was her contract with God; how many paintings
were needed to make Pedernal her own?
As for flowers, once on canvas they were hers forever,
every single part: peduncle, receptacle, sepal, ovule, petal,
filament, anther, stamen, pistil, stigma, style; she made each
grand, immortal, never to wilt. Perhaps she had made a pact
with God about them as well, and now paints in a garden
in a “faraway nearby” with flowers so colorful and exquisite
her brush will be busy for all eternity.
This poem, like so many more, generated by participating in August Postcard Poetry an annual event.
