Brief Narrative of AWP with Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago

I started out in the cold Chicago glow of all my far-away friends and new writers to adore. Light shot out from everywhere, and sometimes I had to lock myself in my room and breathe real slowly and remember that quiet was awfully important. Then light shot out from everywhere again. And it snowed on my hats (one white, and one black). And light shot out from the inside until I sucked it back in and held it in my lungs and in between my ears.


(Georgia O'Keeffe, Electric Light)


Then I walked around and swam too (underwater! underwater!) like a fish. I saw the Buddha Seated in Meditation (Dhyanamudra) and got ready to enter my world again. Big buildings that I work in and stare out on. And there's magic sometimes when the light is just right.


(Georgia O'Keeffe, The Shelton with Sunspots, NY)

Then I took the plane, met more writers, and tried to hold on to all my far-away friends and far-away lights like buoys in all that icy water. Big red buoy all covered with life, I particularly like how it becomes one with the sea, but manages still to float despite all the ocean pulling it inward.



(Peter Blume, Buoy)