They say invest in art and gold in a recession. I made a big investment. I just bought a $350 painting. Cloud forest. Appalachian cloud scape. Home. I just made an investment. Not in Jeff Enge with the spark in his eye. Or in Sarah Culbreth, his wife who owns the establishment. I invested in a painting that feels like home. I invested in my heart, my mind, my soul. With me comes the environment and the land and all the people around me. With me is Henry who watches Winnie the Pooh and peeled me a turnip to eat raw while he went numb from the wedged up contorted way he sat in the back seat. Thanks to Henry for lecturing me on not beating myself up. Thanks to the son who encouraged me to get it from the back porch. Thanks to Jeff Enge and his eye for crazy beauty, thick paint that, heck, I could touch, because I, raised a simplicity loving Quaker and a Berea student, I own it. I never used to want material things. Or I wanted them, then realized they were without meaning. But Appalachian Cloud Forest Home has a plethora of meanings that all come together in a womb of self appreciation and love. I AM THIS PAINTING. And because of that, because its barn wood frame speaks to me, because the nine bails of hay whisper poems to me, and the hills promise me someday I will have all my secret wants and desires. Because, I care for this as I have always cared for myself and as I will care for my eventual house, my life will be full and rich and happy. And though my life is painful and right now I feel my foot pain coming on, and I confess my foolishness in opening the car door and the Pooh jar fell out and shattered. But I will piece it back together. For even that holds symbolism now, even when it can't hold water. I will take care of myself and what I have. My mind can be so active. But I am NOT Van Gogh or Virginia Woolf. I know my limits. I know the hard reality of the material world and I am well versed in her pleasures. And because when I look at that painting my prayers are answered, that is a reason, a good reason to own it. As good of a reason as any. Though it's match, I'll leave for another, mine was Jeff's first. But mine, mine will not be my last.

xo

For Felicia (Again)
by Maggie

When my poetry mentor was little she read Sapho at six.
I read the Sow’s Ear poetry magazine as Mary pasted it together.
I always said I was a Sow’s Ear child –
And while I always knew what it wasn’t,
I never understood what it was.
Then I understood it was not a literal pig ear
Or even the legendary purse that is made from it.
Of course there would be a symbol past the stitches of rags and riches.
Poets, and we all can be poets,
Read anything they can touch, hear, smell, hide away with on the rooftop
When they’re supposed to be asleep.
Poets, and we all can be poets,
Are ALL Sow’s Ear children.
We read Sapho at six,
Basho on the beach instead of sandcastles
Or while sandcastles were built on our backs.
We read quickly – devouring the text until we could get back in the pond.
Or we read slowly, melting into the words themselves like a stew.
We let the road signs on long trips grow into stanzas,
We sat in front of library isles,
And took every seventh word, and read a sonnet.
Because if every person is a poet, every word Can Be (not is) poetry.