Without
Without
I wore mint, flowers, against my summer skin
I pressed my body into iron ochre
sank myself into rain-loosened earth, under this
held my head toward the sun,
closed my eyes
felt loved
I read that Georgia O’Keeffe “confessed that she
sometimes fantasied about lying nude
on the dry, hot, reddish slopes” of Abiquiu
I wonder if she, too, wanted the purity of warmth
simplicity, movement’s beauty without external soundings
I thought then of all the times I’ve pressed my body
against this earth to feel momentarily
without the complexity of layering, of overlapping
I remembered Alejandro who poured honey
over my body, that honey, and pressed those magenta flowers
onto me, into that miel, into me, those flowers, matched my lips
I laid there in honey and flowers and bees and sensuality
on hot earth as he photographed me, my shyness, there
I tried to see beyond the construct of camera
beyond film, man, and what seemed a thousand layers
of honey, of flowers, of nudity, of sad insecurity
I thought of how different I am alone in beauty
in absence with earth and my skin
and a sky that lights it with a thousand colors
how simply I turn my head toward sun
close eyes, feel loved
and not without
I often return to fragments of "A Biography of Georgia O'Keeffe" by Laurie Lisle. I've felt a certain connectedness to O'Keeffe since I first discovered a painting of hers on a greeting card (of all places). And I've been drawn to New Mexico, one of her many homes (and perhaps the most "home" of any, yet who am I to say?) since my parents brought me there when I was ten. I've since returned on a few occasions, and each time feeling a sense of belonging. The subtlety of layers of reds and sages, and the intensity of the sun, and the immensity of the sky, and my thoughts of her, Georgia O'Keeffe, wandering alone in those hills to find things that speak, this all spoke to me, there. And it was in Santa Fe during long nights and long bicycle rides that I began to allow myself to process the death of my mother and father, admit to myself a certain loneliness, a certain aloneness. In the past years I've thought of moving, packing my things once again, going to feel the sun and to sense a different earth; I've thought of moving to the place where I first felt my own strength again. And yet, this place, Vermont, too, holds me, not as all places do. Here I have the space to wear flowers and mud and rain and let them melt into me as I do into them. And I think it is this, this more than the red dust on my legs and cheeks, more than the endless skies, that I yearn(ed) for. I desire(d) to feel so close to a place, so at peace in a place, so alone in a place, that I can feel all its intensities inside and outside of me. It was this closeness that I felt under this streaked sky. I was in a space without and yet with everything--without eyes and voices, and yet with a love for being, so pure, and so full of joy.