CONTRIBUTOR ART: Kara Jean Robinson

Goddaughter's Blanket
Kara Jean Robinson
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Besides knitting beautiful creations, KJ Robinson is currently finishing her MPH at John's Hopkin's University in Baltimore, MD. See her lovely blogsite.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: RL Robinson

life sign
Rachel Robinson
Mosaic, 11.5" diameter
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RL Robinson lives in a sunny flat and works as a community artist in Baltimore, Maryland. Learn more about RL at her blog, goldengreenandblue.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: Ryan Pendell

Sonnet
Ryan Pendell
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Ryan Pendell is currently finishing his BA in English in Iowa. Next year he will study at the Chicago Art Institute. For more of Pendell's art and poetry, see thegourd.blogspot.com.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: J Long

Newborn Ngaire
J. Long
__________

J Long currently lives and teaches English in coastal Virginia.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: Mark Levi

Pantocrator
Mark Levi
Egg Tempra on Wooden Board
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Carolina Sunset
Mark Levi
Watercolor
__________

Autumn Canopy
Mark Levi
Chalk pastel on charcoal paper
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Maddie Portrait
Mark Levi
Pencil
__________

Mark Levi teaches art in the Chicago area. To see more art & check out Levi's music, visit his website.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: Tonya Martin

Kentuck Knob
Tonya Martin
Photograph
__________

Sunset 3/22/07
Tonya Martin
Photograph
__________

Tonya Martin lives in Greene County, Pennsylvania.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: Jenna Martin

Pretty Feather
Jenna Martin
Crayon
__________

Jenna Martin will start preschool in the fall. She lives in Greene County, Pennsylvania.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: Kurt Cole Eidsvig

Magical Engineers
Kurt Cole Eidsvig

__________


A Snake Charmer
Kurt Cole Eidsvig
__________


A Miracle
Kurt Cole Eidsvig
__________


And No End of
Kurt Cole Eidsvig

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Kurt Cole Eidsvig has been described as "the Tom Jones of painting, the Eazy-E of poetry."

See more of his art at KurtColeEidsvig.com.

Eidsvig will be opening his studio in Boston for the 2007 Fort Point Art Walk. Dates for the 2007 Spring Art Walk are:

Friday, May 4, 4 to 7 PM
Saturday, May 5, 12 to 5 PM
Sunday, May 6, 12 to 5 PM

Art Walk is an opportunity to explore studios, meet artists, and purchase unique works of art and craft. Over 60 artists will open their studios. For more information see KurtColeEidsvig.com or FortPointArts.org.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: Hephzibah Nicky Dutt

A Calender Picture
Hephzibah Nicky Dutt
Photograph, Worchester (UK), May 2006
__________

A Nice Place to Rest
Hephzibah Nicky Dutt
Photograph, Malvern (UK), May 2006
__________
Nicky is a master's theatre student at Bowling Green State University. Her goal in life is to make good theatre in the company of friends.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: Merry Winter Cockroft

Jeeves and Wooster
Merry W. Cockroft
__________

Star
Merry W. Cockroft
__________


Lion
Merry W. Cockroft
Magic Marker on Construction Paper
__________


Elephant
Merry W. Cockroft
__________

Merry Winter Cockroft turned five last December. She lives and works in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: Ken Cockroft

Merry
Ken Cockroft
Photograph
__________

Ken Cockroft, an accomplished photographer, lives in Brookshire, Texas.

Floribunda

Some women go to the mall and buy clothes they can't afford when their husband travels. I loaded the girls into the car and drove them down by the railway, where we walked gaga, open-mouthed, through the freshly stocked Agway Nursery. Elspeth ran in circles through the cedar mulch around the groaning rose table.

Ah, hah! I've been wanting one of those. . .John F. Kennedy's sturdy stalk, his meaty branches and purple thorns. A photo hanging from a branch promises salivating-inducing white hybrid tea blossoms. I can smell it now! Oooooo. Want it! Want it!

I do not get this shivery, primal response when viewing bean starts or shoots of male asparagus. But roses--the thought of my garden full of blossoms, my house swooning with their scent--I would happily exchange my birthright for a floribunda or an English tea: jolly ruffly buxom women.

Is it because I was born in Bangladesh, near India, and as a child visited meltingly beautiful tea rose gardens? Is it because my childhood is perfumed with rose-water and incense? Is it because in Kenya my mother always arranged a bouquet of long-stemmed blossoms for our dining room table?

My heart fails me when I see roses stuffed carelessly in a vase, without their stems sliced at an angle. Let's see--boiling water, sugar, a sharp knife or scissors, which do you use? And always trim off the bottom leaves! Don't you even care? I have more than once fished yellowing, drooping roses from a trash can to bind, hang, dry, to snip off weary heads, floating them in a bowl of water.

There is something ancient in a rose, something so other that I feel overwhelmed by gratitude that one would bloom in my garden!

Last season I trotted down to the closing fall sales at "Jill's Jungle." Jill showed me a wonderful tea standard. Its slender trunk spilled into handfuls of perfect pink flowers and delicate green leaves. I handed over an unusually high sum (for our pocketbook) and tenderly drove the standard home to my front garden. I had spent weeks digging up the grass by hand with a trowel, and the standard tea would be an absolutely perfect centerpiece for my slowly evolving rose garden. The girls mucked about in the soil while I dug a huge hole and planted the standard. And it was elegant, it was perfect, it was divine.

Out of the mountains the wind gusted down our street. Dark clouds rolled like Pharaoh's chariots across the bright summer sky. I picked up the girls; hair whipped around our faces--and we ran up onto the porch just as huge drops of rain spattered our path.

From the living room window, I watched debris and leaves blowing across our yard and down our street. The rose standard with its tender blossoms bent in the force of the gale. . .

Snap!

That sad, violent sound still hangs like a ghost over my rose garden. After the storm calmed down and the rain was at a steady fall, I waded out through the mud in the darkness. In the late evening, holding an umbrella with one hand and twine and tape with the other, I tried to mend the amputee. I did not have high hopes.

You can find the little pink buds, still fragrant, on a small silver tray in my bathroom. That, and a stalk I left in the ground, is what remains of that royal rose standard.

Will the stalk send out shoots? Has it somehow lived after all, through the winter winds? I'm doubtful but then I'm always doubtful about seeds, and measly little bedding plants, and bare shrubs. Spring is full of miracles, and high summer yields one surprise after the next.

Note

Hello, all--do read J. C.'s fantastic but horror-inspiring book review below this entry.

Tomorrow evening, if all goes well, look for Wazoo Farm's premier Art Show!

It will be grand!

Merry is Laura, I'm Ma, Daddy's Pa

And Elspeth is Carrie. Merry fussed about over Elspeth at the table, rolling her eyes in an exaggerated fashion, waggling her finger at Elspeth's button nose. "No, no, no!" Merry admonished, as Elspeth flung her mashed-potato covered spoon to the floor for the third time.

I've realized, now that we're in the thick of "The Long Winter," that calling Merry "Laura" occasionally as she requests works to my advantage. Laura immedately obeys, even when an internal battle rages; she's courageous; she lives to help. This afternoon Merry piled miscellany in the back of her tricycle and pushed herself across the grass, scouting for a good place to camp for the night. I was digging holes for the notorious Poplar trees with Elspeth--sorry, Carrie--strapped to my back. "Laura!" I'd call, and Merry would go running cheerfully upon some noble errand--fetching me the phone or carrying trees. Like a true Laura-Pioneer (as Merry calls her), Merry held the trunks for me on the steep slope while I tamped them in. Elspeth swung happily on my back, watching us.

Outdoors. Imm. . .I finished digging up the turf to make a bed for mint today (thinking Song of Solomon's "Many waters cannot quench mint. . ." stopped here and did not go on to "We have a little sister and she has no. . .") Also planted my hydrangea tree in the front of the house, a scrawny little snowman arm that contains somewhere the energy to explode into balloons of flowers. I'll believe it when I see it.

When I finally detached Elspeth from my back and we went inside, Merry was happy as a little duck and energetically washed the supper dishes with lots of soap and cold water.

Tonight we read three chapters of "The Long Winter." When we were finished, Merry sighed deeply. "I wish I could be Laura," she said. "I wish I could live back in those days."

I began to list all the things she might miss if she lived then: electricity, indoor plumbing, videos. . .Merry piped up. "Well, I wouldn't miss videos," she said, and agreed that books were much better than TV. Then she leaned over and gave me a big hug. "But you're better than a book!" she cried.

Well, that is high praise, and enough to get me through the next few days while Martin will be away in Deleware at a prof.'s conference. Poor chap--a hotel room all to himself. Two or three years ago the thought of being alone for days on end with two children would have made me blanch. But now I realize that much of life is about choice (the rest is grace=two easy children) and whether or not I will have a rollicking fine time is up to me. I have in my possession a lemon pound cake, and this I will consume tomorrow evening with friends. Also I am tossing around several options (all indoors, alas, because of spring rain): painting a wall, removing a kitchen cabinet, writing a poem series, knocking out a wall with a sledgehammer. Staying up all night watching BBC Netflix? Driving to Montana? What would Laura-Pioneer do?