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

in my dreams of yesterday you stand before my eyes you smiling face . . . your laughing eyes . . . I feel your love today as I did yesterday I feel your arms about me gently holding me intertwining . . . locked in our love your lips are on mine burning with untold words and feeling love's fires burning in our breasts filling me with that wondrous ache of love now . . . the empty days and empty night cling to my very soul leaving me alone with yesterday's love ~ art by Nancy L. Young-Houser and poem by Sandra S. Marquiss picture owned by Cassie Houser

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 by Nancy L. Young-Houser