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    O'Keeffe: Days in a Life
    O'Keeffe: Days in a Life
    O'Keeffe: Days in a Life
    Ebook138 pages1 hour

    O'Keeffe: Days in a Life

    By C. S. Merrill

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    About this ebook

    “Carol Merrill’s tribute to Georgia O’Keeffe is poems in the shape of finely rendered sketches, some of them even paintings. These intimate images convey the delicate and tough shape of O’Keeffe’s final years in New Mexico.”—Joy Harjo, author of She Had Some Horses

    “When I got O’Keeffe mss I sat down after midnite at kitchen table when I should’ve been in bed & read it thru in an hour because it was interesting, curious, distinctive, focused, condensed, epiphanous, ordinary & understandable. The details are all, sacramentalizing everyday life in a world of genius—a woman, vast space, chewy intelligence, almost selfless observation.”—Allen Ginsberg, author of Howl

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of New Mexico Press
    Release dateFeb 15, 2014
    ISBN9780826354211
    O'Keeffe: Days in a Life
    Author

    C. S. Merrill

    C. S. Merrill worked for Georgia O’Keeffe from 1973 to 1979 as secretary, librarian, reader, cook, nurse, and companion. Merrill is also the author of Weekends with O’Keeffe (UNM Press). She is the volunteer librarian at Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico.

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      Book preview

      O'Keeffe - C. S. Merrill

      1

      The roofless room with vigas and screen

      two gigantic jade trees in pots.

      Against the far wall a slight niche

      with a huge black rock there.

      On the whole white wall, a slight shadow

      and that rock. O’Keeffe’s sight so poor

      she doesn’t see it, but knows it’s there.

      Also one moonflower plant blooming wide open

      and onions drying on screens, fragrance of earth.

      August, 1973

      2

      O’Keeffe at lunch, the table her design

      patty pan squash & zucchini lightly steamed

      carrots cooked in butter & dill;

      home-baked bread with sunflower seeds

      thinly sliced roast beef, chipped ice in glasses

      with raspberry juice and mint tea.

      In the center a large glass bowl

      with an enormous pink hibiscus flower

      floating with a green sprig of tansy

      good for a miscarriage, O’Keeffe said

      talking of herbs for female parts.

      In the roofless room trumpet flower blooming.

      August, 1973

      3

      O’Keeffe used to go

      to the Lawrence Ranch

      before Frieda died.

      Trees have grown

      and the view is

      not so full

      as it used to be.

      She used to rest

      under one tree,

      spent much time

      looking up through branches

      her head by the trunk.

      August, 1973

      4

      O’Keeffe loved

      a silk kimono

      she wore so much

      there was a hole

      in the seat of it;

      patched it

      with a satin patch,

      wore a hole

      in that.

      Couldn’t bring herself

      to patch the patch.

      "You know . . .

      glad we were young

      when we were,

      wouldn’t want to be these days."

      August, 1973

      5

      O’Keeffe lost her eyesight slowly

      in a store in Santa Fe

      walked out to a dim day

      surprised the day was overcast.

      Next day was overcast, but it wasn’t;

      that was how it started, a bloodclot

      so she has to look to one side to see.

      September, 1973

      6

      One worker came to the sliding door

      long hair, mustache, and a little slumped

      asked to trim Russian Olive hedge.

      She said no at first, then yes.

      He said in a slow sentence

      the great painter should not

      scuff around in unpolished shoes.

      He oiled & polished her worn flats,

      they shined, slick, like new.

      September, 1973

      7

      O’Keeffe empties the sleeve

      of her Chinese coat of fuzz

      My opinion is not worth much

      I pick the fuzz off her coat.

      We walk round the driveway

      in Abiquiu, so many times

      make a mile, the light faded,

      she gestures to the mesa

      behind the house, "Let’s go in

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