Peonies & Friends II

Jessica Berry

Earthenware clay, wheel thrown, hand built embellishments.

Monologue: The peonies have been moved several times. I speak as though they are mine, but they were a gift to my daughter on her 1st and 3rd birthdays, by a neighbour who knew one more plastic toy would not last as long as having her very own flower garden. Every spring we start to clip them bring them inside so they can bloom in their full glory on the kitchen counter before they become infested with ants. The garden rats scurry around underfoot, and we hear their rustle in the underbrush more than we see them. Except for one year. The mother rat had eaten one too many vegetables out of my garden, so we we trapped her and let her go a few miles from home. The babies, about half grown, great bold in her absence and could be seen hanging from the flowers and tall grasses outside our walkout basement windows. They would sit in the middle of the lawn eating clover, with little regard for their pre-sized presence in a cruel world that had been hidden from them by their mothers protective ways.