Georgia

When I see the red-rock mountains and cliffs
of Box Canyon, I know that she came here
with her paint box
and a sketchpad she thought
might be big enough
to hold the image before me.
But my notebook isn’t big enough
and there aren’t enough words. If this scene
could be captured by words
or in paints it would have been
done a million times already
on cave walls, boxcars,
billboards, notebooks; we would
tattoo it on our backs, we’d sing it
out loud—the world would
be obsessed.

But if Georgia O’Keefe couldn’t do it,
then neither can I and neither
will anyone, until the cliffs fall and the sun
sets behind the rubble, leaving it
invisible in the darkness.