"2209 Arctic Avenue" by Julia Hebner

Image posted with the permission of the artist. More of Julia Hebner's bright and lively work can be viewed and purchased on her Etsy store here. 

"It's winter," she says, "because the trees are naked." The cool, blue shadows of those naked tree branches lay flat across the side of a house like vines. I wonder if someone is looking at our car pass by, peering out from a darkened window. I wonder if it is warm in there.

"Sledgehammers" by Sybil Andrews

Lean back
Raise head
Pull down and
Strike - THUMP!
A steady rhythm
Each swing of the hammer
One fluid movement
The tools
Extensions of the bodies
The bodies
A collective machine
Weight and force spiral in, while
A trail of wind ripples out
It is like music, or
A blooming flower
The way work should be

"Boy and Goose" by Eliza Draper Gardiner

It's Christmas Eve, and the boy has been sent to grab the goose for tomorrow's dinner. Not all that much larger or heavier than his prey, the boy wrestles to keep a grip on the distressed bird, while the slanted, purple light of these dwarfed days lends even more drama to their struggle. Despite his small stature, the boy is sturdy and determined. Indeed, Sir Fowl, I don't care how much of a cumbersome and noisy load you are. Regardless of all your wiggles and honks of protest, you're goose is cooked!

"Resting" by Nancy Grant

I am reminded of science fiction stories with portals which lead to another time and place. Except that in the stories it is always somewhere really exciting, but here it is mundane. Mundane, but at least with a quiet charm. In and out, in and out, and where are we really, especially when we're only halfway through.Tied to this anchor  this overgrown shrub, heads low in acceptance of a fate where we drift on an island of mist. Where we blend in and revolve ever so slowly around a fading altar.

"Practicing Chopin" by Brenda Everett

Image posted with the permission of the artist. More of Brenda Everett's work can be viewed and purchased on her Etsy Store.

Clumsy notes clamor, through the walls, down the hall, spilling out the screen door into the back yard. The yard where the hard running steps and laughter of children are heard. One of the neighbors is charging up their staircase in time with the notes of the A flat major scale I play over and over again to prepare for Ballade No. 3. Wrong notes, and even right notes played wrong, beat against my eardrums. It takes so long to get any good. Notes, notes, like strokes of paint, some delicate like raindrops, other heavy like gobs of mud. Notes, notes, redundant like stripes and spots on our shirts. Other times merely repetitive, yet with numerous variations, like books of different colors and widths on the shelf, or windows of various sizes and shapes, yet all clear and letting in the light. Over and over I run around this same block, finding my stride, falling full into the moment and losing my sense of time. After a while, a long, long while, all this effort will pay off.

"The Bees" by Cathy Durso

Image posted with the permission of the artist. Cathy Durso shows and sells her work online on her Etsy Store. Also learn more about the artist and her other works at her website.

What is a bee, but a tiny fairy in a brightly striped petticoat, inviting us in for tea so that she can hurl her itty bity mug of boiling liquid in our faces. Bee. B. Bea. It is a bug, and also the name of a hot-tempered child who happens to like striped petticoats and tea parties.

There's the Bee on the wall. Not the real, live insect, but the vintage decal. The one with the curly-Q antennae and rosy-red nose. She's friends with the Bear. That one with the blue bow round his neck, who smiles at us with glossy, plastic eyes. Not a speck in common with the Bear at the zoo. Bees and Bears. I should be afraid, but I'm not.

Now here is a swarm! A pulsating parade of bees stripped down to more resemble bubbles or balloons. Like eyes, they stare. Yellow, glowing cat eyes, which hover over neatly mowed grass, in the place where darkness is bubble gum pink.

"Tiger and Sloth" by Ellen Shipley

Image posted with the permission of the artist. More about Ellen Shipley and her work can be viewed on her blog, Pressing Issues.

It is, rather, the tiger of my dreams, flat and ornamental, yet snickering at me, and I just don't know what's so damn funny. There is something in a way cats recline. That position which is so stately, so cozy, as if the cat is privy to some secret of how the world works. Oh, that snicker, how it taunts me even in my sleep. Especially in my sleep, actually, for my dreams are portals to terrible lands, where giants lurk and days are longer than snakes.

The sloth is who I'd rather be. He has disguised himself in plain view as the tiger's reflection. Eveyone is so distracted by thirst and the tiger's stately posture and pretty swirls that they don't notice the sloth. Quietly he extends his tongue and pulls forward to lick the dew off a saucy leaf.

Addendum: When I contacted Ellen Shipley to get permission to write about and post this image, she added this:

I don't know exactly what you plan to say about the print, but I don't know if you saw in a later post that the woman it was made for died of the Swine flu a short while later. She was a friend and co-worker, and that year's Christmas card had an homage to her:  she is the "Kitty" sleeping on the hearth.