Sunday we tend to be a bit more laid back around here, so I thought I’d use up some front page real estate to promote some talented friends of mine.

First a poem from my (now award-winning) friend Samantha Kolber whose work can be seen at this blog and this blog:

With the wind at my back, the points of yellow stars always point to you

as if the punt in the bottle coaxes the wine from the neck.

Sometimes your mind won’t stop, not even for

a moment, not even to take in the shift in color in a cloud at sunset.

They say the whole is greater than the sum

but I wonder if greater is better…or worse.

The sky that just sits above your head as an offering:

some silence is peaceful while others are awkward, drinking

wine the color of crimson and blood, like oceans after

a feed, rolling through folds of a tapestry more colorful than you can possibly weave.

Ruled by ways we can’t understand, the not knowing a weight on our shoulders,

and maybe, just maybe, all that came before, is all that will come to be.

Here’s a bit from my friends Laurie Rose Griffith and Peter Mealy, who perform out of Fredericksburg VA, and have won a few awards of their own (Laurie is one of my oldest and best friends). Look for ’em on itunes.