Nebraska Artists and then some ...

  I have stood beside you so tall and strong at the peak of your young lives  . . . it is hard to remember memories of you learning how to crawl, continuously falling yet crowing in new achievements. At last, walking in triumph upon two shaky little feet, it is hard to remember old memories. Your first day of school ... scared, shaking inside,  a strong person on the outside . . . another on the inside. You never wanted to be anything less than perfect  yet not wanting anyone to know ... that other person. It is hard to remember old memories of your later years, bikes and toys filling our yard. At times I would awake to find your friends, escaping life by quietly entering that back door,  filled with anger, seeking someone to care,  filled with a need for love and acceptance, seeking peace. It is hard to watch teenage struggles, my own and yours, heartbreaking and unreal appearing to destroy, but only age-old steps in learning what life was about ...  yet always unable to

  you have played the game so well that I knew you have played it before you went for broke you won my soul my will has been yours to keep I gave you all I could yet you asked me for more you drained me of my early years and my youth you cut the age of time upon my face and soul one day you said "no more" and turned and walked away the tenderness had gone because you had won the game so well ~ art by Nancy L. Young-Houser and poem by Sandra S. Marquiss 

There is a place, an enchanted place, not so very far from here; when the season is right and the moon rises high in the midnight sky. It is a fantasy night, a wonderful night, when the fairies will dance until the dawn's early light.    It is this night, this enchanted night, that the dragon comes in her flight to place her egg in the hallowed out stump that stands in the bottom of a dried out lake, one year from this very same day. When the moon rises high in the ebony sky, and the fairies will dance until dawn's early light, that the dragon will again take off in her flight to reclaim what is rightfully hers … that which she placed in the hallowed out stump. She will sail through the sky with her babe by her side, heading in a line with the pale moon light until she is out of your sight this I have been told by the men of old, who swear by God that it is true  ~ Art by Nancy L. Young-Houser and poetry by Sandra S. Marquiss 

Art Work by Sandra S. Marquiss

Art by Sandra S. Marquiss