Georgia O'Keefe

It’s an awkward position, this fame and fortune. Brought about by my “luck” to be manipulated by a prestigious man. I know there are hundreds, thousands, of wonderful women painters—like my own sister, Ida. Fame and fortune ignores Ida, like it ignores most women. But do I rally for feminist causes? The right to vote? The ERA? No. Patriarchy has been good to me. I’m one of the lucky ones. I won’t rock the boat. I prefer my solitude, and my friends—artists all. Mostly men.

Then, of course, there’s Maria. Oh the highs and lows, intense intimacies then harsh breakups. Yet I invite her to return. Aggravating as she can be, there is no one except Maria for whom I feel this way. And the beloved women’s hands that stroke every inch  of my home, inside and out. Adobe earth. Female. Indigenous.

Stieglitz? Oh yes. How our passion rocked us to our core. I was young. He a charismatic father, lover, promoter, crafting the public persona of me and my art. Yes, he opened the gates and galloped the horses through on the road of my fame and fortune. But it was his fame and fortune, too. His gallery profited with the hefty commissions on sales of my work.

So many women have come to idolize me. It’s an odd position I have in the world, this soul-less society that commoditizes soul. The essence of my soul imbues the oils I brush on canvas. The paintings where my soul stumbled, I burned.

Sure, I could have dedicated my life to be an activist, but then I would not have had the time and quietude of soul space to paint. To walk two miles every morning in the remote desert of Abiquiu. To gaze and absorb, commune with the landscape, life in her many manifestations, rivers, mountains, sky and bones.

Luck?

About this poem

More lyrical prose than poem, many might say. Nevertheless, Georgia O'Keefe is part of my Solstice solar year poem cycle, where I write a poem a day from June 22, 2019 to June 21, 2020. The poem a day may get posted on a different day than it was written, or several poems might get posted on the same day. And if I choose to submit a poem to a literary journal, I delete it from this blog before doing so. That's my project. I hope it touches your soul and makes you think. And maybe inspires you to write more poems of your own.