City - Abiquiu State - NEW MEXICO Country - United States
About
I wanted to feel the sun in the stones - The ashen, far-flung winter sun - But this I did not tell you, I believe, But I believe that after all you knew. And then, in those days, too, I made you the gift of a small, brown stone, And you described it with the tips of your fingers And knew at once that it was beautiful - At once, accordingly you knew, As you knew the forms of the earth at Abiquiu: That time involves them and they bear away, Beautiful, various, remote, In failing light, and in the coming of cold.
Written by Native American Poet N. Scott Momaday for Georgia O'Keeffe
N. Scott Momaday is a Pulitzer prize-winning novelist and also a poet. At this weekend's National Book Festival in Washington, DC, he told the following story, reported today in the Washington Post:
"Invited to visit the then-80-year-old artist in New Mexico, he knocked on her door. O'Keefe answered wearing a tuxedo and they fell immediately to talking. Eventually his hostess realized that she hadn't offered her guest refreshment, so she got up to fetch him a scotch and soda -- and did not return. Nervously, Momaday waited and waited. Ominous bangings emerged from the kitchen. Eventually, O'Keefe came back, confessed she didn't have the key to the liquor pantry--and disappeared again. More nervous waiting ensued before she finally appeared with the drink on a silver tray. It turns out that Georgia O'Keefe had taken the pantry doors off at the hinges with a screwdriver," Momaday said as his audience roared. 'And of course, I had to write a poem.'"
---Reported by Bob Thompson, Washington Post, October 1, 2007
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