Ladder to the Moon
             for Georgia O’Keeffe
  
 When it’s time, you’ll know.
 You’ll see it hanging in front of you
 as if it had always been there, 
 a hand-made wooden ladder
 above night-blackened red desert hills, 
 its bottom rung too high to even jump for, 
 top rung reaching nothing 
 save the space between earth sand and moon soil.
  
 And somewhere past this desert, 
 past every thing, 
 strains a music of cinder blocks, 
 choirs of cranes and car horns, 
 and towers in New   York
 reverberating a struggle 
 to reach only higher than they can.
  
 If you can just see what is here, 
 then maybe a ladder will fall within your reach, 
 maybe it will carry you up 
 to touch and stand on a moon of your own, 
 to look down on towers of concrete, steel, and glass
  
 that seem so small from there.
  
 © Shawn Pavey, 2019