WEBVTT

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I would like to read you a
couple of poems if I may,

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a couple of fairly early poems
and then some very recent ones,

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just a few.

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It won't take long.

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And I promise you you can
get to the Best Picture

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of the Year in a few minutes.

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This poem that I
would like to read you

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is entitled "Forms of
the Earth at Abiquiu."

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And I wrote it
several years ago.

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And I have to tell you
a little bit about it.

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It is dedicated to
Georgia O'Keeffe.

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And I met Georgia O'Keeffe
in the very early '70s.

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It was like 1971 or '72.

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I was living in Santa Fe and
I admired her work very much,

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I still do.

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And so I drove up,
you know, full of--

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I was nervous to--

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oh, great woman,
great painter, one

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of the great artists
of our time and I

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was so nervous
about meeting her.

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I went up and knocked
on her door at a Abiquiu

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and she opened the door.

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She was dressed in a tuxedo.

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Her hair was swept severely
back even as mine is tonight.

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And she had these wonderful,
big, artists' hands.

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And she was very beautiful and
she invited me into her house.

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And we sat in the living
room, which was like a museum.

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She was doing her so-called
rock paintings at the time,

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so she had rock
paintings on the wall.

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And she showed me the
fireplace, which she had built

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with her own hands and she--

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there were window boxes
filled with stones.

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She loved rocks and she liked
to go out into the riverbeds

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and pick up stones and she
filled window boxes with them.

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There were bones.

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Of course, she loved
bones, and so they

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were the skeletons,
the skulls of cows

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and sheep and
everything like that.

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There was a snake, the skeleton
of a snake in a glass box.

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And so I was admiring all of
this, and we were talking.

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And after about 30
minutes Georgia O'Keeffe

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realized that she had neglected
to offer me refreshment.

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So she got very fidgety
and she said, oh, I'm so--

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I'm so sorry I've been remiss.

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What would you like to drink?

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And I couldn't have cared less.

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I was having wonderful time and
I said, oh, I'm fine please.

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But she persisted, and she
said, no, no, you must--

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you must have
something to drink.

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And so finally I said, well,
I'll have a scotch and Soda.

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And so she nodded
with satisfaction

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and she left the room.

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She went out in the
direction of the kitchen,

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and she did not return.

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[LAUGHTER] And I
waited, and I waited,

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and I waited, and I became
extremely uncomfortable.

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She was already well into her
'80s and I thought, oh dear,

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what is she in trouble?

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Should I go and investigate or
should I stay here and wait?

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And then to make matters
worse, there came this din

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from the kitchen that like
the clanging of pots and pans,

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banging metal on
metal, and I didn't

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know what to think of this.

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And I was extremely
uncomfortable and I began to--

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Then she returned at
long last, but she

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was more flustered than ever.

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And she said, oh dear,
it's my maid's day off

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and I don't know what
she did with the key

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to the liquor pantry.

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And I was so relieved
to see her that I said,

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oh, please it doesn't matter.

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Please don't go to
any more trouble.

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I'm fine.

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Let us resume our conversation.

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But that old-- that 80-year-old
woman had got it into her mind

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that I was going
to have a drink.

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And to my distress, she
excused herself again.

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She went out in the
direction of the kitchen

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and she did not return.

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[LAUGHTER] And I waited,
and I waited, and I waited,

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and again a din, the
banging of pots and pans,

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noises that I cannot
describe to you.

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And by that time I had
developed a tick under this eye.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Beads of blood began to appear--

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appeared on my forehead.

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I was a wreck, a nervous wreck,
and I wanted just to leave.

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I wanted to die.

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[LAUGHTER] Whereupon Georgia
O'Keefe returned with my drink

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on a silver tray.

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And it turns out that this 80
odd year old woman, and this

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is true, had taken
the pantry doors off

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at the hinges with
a screwdriver.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And I visited her
several times after that.

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Those meetings were not nearly
so excruciatingly painful,

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but I had to write
a poem, of course,

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and dedicated to
Georgia O'Keeffe,

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and so I'll read it to you.

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By the way, another footnote is
that when she died, on the day

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she died I was giving a
reading at Bucknell University

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and I had this poem and
so I was able to read it

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as a kind of
commemoration which was

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a thing of which I'm grateful--
for which I'm grateful.

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It's called "forms of
the Earth at Abiquiu."

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"I imagine the
time of our meeting

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there among the forms
of the Earth at Abiquiu

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and other times that
followed from the one.

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An easy conjugation of
stories and late luncheons

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of wine and cheese.

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All around there were beautiful
objects, clean and precise

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in their beauty like bone.

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Indeed bone, a snake in
the filaments of bone,

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the skulls of cows and sheep
and the many smooth stones

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in the window in the flat
winter light were beautiful.

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I wanted to feel the
sun in the stones,

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the ashen far flung winter sun.

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Then in those days
too, I made you

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the gift of a small brown
stone, and you described it

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with the tips of your
fingers and knew at once

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that it was beautiful.

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At once, accordingly,
you knew, as you

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knew the forms of the Earth
at Abiquiu, that time involves

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them, and they bear
away, beautiful, various,

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remote in failing light
and the coming of cold."

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