Karen's Muse and Musings

Meet Bobby

A beautiful cabinet card arrived in my mail yesterday from Christine. I just love this little boy with his ball and his adorable toy horse — so much so that I sat right down and created this collage sheet.

Here's a little poem from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Looking Forward

When I am grown to man's estate
I shall be very proud and great,
And tell the other girls and boys
Not to meddle with my toys.

Time for a New Look

In honor of the recent first anniversary of my Typepad blog, I decided to freshen things up by trying a new look. After completing the "remodeling," I searched for a poem to fit the renewal theme. However, I found this lovely poem by Robert Frost, and I couldn't stop thinking about it, so this is my offering for you today.

The Exposed Nest

You were forever finding some new play.
So when I saw you down on hands and knees
In the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay,
Trying, I thought, to set it up on end,
I went to show you how to make it stay,
If that was your idea, against the breeze,
And, if you asked me, even help pretend
To make it root again and grow afresh.
But ’twas no make-believe with you to-day,
Nor was the grass itself your real concern,

Though I found your hand full of wilted fern,
Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clover.
’Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground
The cutter-bar had just gone champing over
(Miraculously without tasting flesh)

And left defenseless to the heat and light.
You wanted to restore them to their right
Of something interposed between their sight
And too much world at once—could means be found.
The way the nest-full every time we stirred

Stood up to us as to a mother-bird
Whose coming home has been too long deferred,
Made me ask would the mother-bird return
And care for them in such a change of scene
And might our meddling make her more afraid.

That was a thing we could not wait to learn.
We saw the risk we took in doing good,
But dared not spare to do the best we could
Though harm should come of it; so built the screen
You had begun, and gave them back their shade.

All this to prove we cared. Why is there then
No more to tell? We turned to other things.
I haven’t any memory—have you?—
Of ever coming to the place again
To see if the birds lived the first night through,

And so at last to learn to use their wings.

Robert Frost (1874–1963).  Mountain Interval.  1920.

East Meets West

Asian is the theme for this week's Gothic Arches. It's funny because it's not my first choice for art style, but my friend, Shirley, has been here this weekend, and on Friday we ate Thai food, and yesterday we ate sushi! So something definitely is in the air.

Shirley and I have had a delightful time together. Eating, of course, was one of the highlights, but so was shopping. I took her to some of my favorite local stores where we definitely did some damage. (Warren, honey, if you're reading this — Shirley did most of the shopping!) Afterwards we came home and drank Grey Goose martinis and shared art tips — the perfect way to spend an evening.

Boy with Goose

Make up your own story to go with this one.

You can now order prints of my artwork such as this one at Etsy.

 

Goose photographed by my good friend Joanne Thieme Huffman and used with her permission. Thank you, Joanne.