NaPoWriMo #10 - Wonderful Ed's Blood-Red Cardinal

Dave Von Bieker

Apr 12, 2020 • 3 min read

Easter Sunday I lay in bed and watch

helpless as

A fresh blanket of snow covers Spring’s progress

White

I scan my bedroom for the brightest thing

The blood-red breast of a cardinal

Perched on the top closet shelf

Carved from scrap wood

In the ramshackle backyard workshop

of Wonderful Ed

—

Last summer we can still fly

South like birds and we do

The whole family

A rented car

An unexplored suburb of

Old town Santa Fe

Nothing but a hand-painted sign

Confirms we have arrived

Nobody greets us

Even though we have called ahead

We are strangers

Beginning to feel like intruders

In New Mexico, we have climbed a waterfall

Slipped down its current

Driven the sagebrush hills of Abiquiu to Ghost Ranch

Then back on lightless white-knuckle roads

Blurred by rain and wind

We have been brave

Until our visit to Ed Larson

Having come so far –

2000 miles to Santa Fe and 2000 more to this driveway –

We disembark

Tiptoe into an empty backyard studio,

Calling out ‘hello’ to the silence

I have visited Ed on Canyon Road

His folk-art enchantment of a horse-barn

His roots and wings for 30 years

He would bring out some new creation every day

To hear his neighbours say “that’s wonderful, Ed”

And it was

Until the weight of art-world rents became unbearable

Ed packed up and moved his studio home

By appointment only

So I have called

This new studio is a faded reproduction

Supplies scattered about – more a tinkerer’s workshop than a gallery

A tinny radio blares

Out into the unkempt yard

Fading sculptures

A wooden alligator

A saddle

Marking the path towards the front porch of a private home

We take the path

More sculptures guard the front door

A flock of common birds

Rough-hewn by Ed’s chisels

Legs of bent coat hangers

Wings cut from pop cans

We decide against knocking and turn to leave

When Ed’s wife Bonnie comes out with the trash

We ignore or forgot any misunderstanding as

She calls Ed to the door and tells him we’ve come for a tour

Ed leads us back

Into the yard, through the brush

Into buildings we’ve missed,

Filled with dozens of paintings

Chronicling dozens of years

His friend who’d won a National Endowment for the Arts

A red-headed cowboy troubadour

His wild years as a sailor

The boys on the canvas still pulling on their navy pants

Topless women shouting after them

My wife, my teenaged kids and I

Listen as 87-year-old Ed

Stumbles over memories triggered by

A lifetime of artwork

A glorious, colourful past

Our tour ends with iced tea and cookies

Prepared by Bonnie

We all sit in their living room

Surrounded by canvases and carvings

A floor lamp made from rifles

When the time comes to leave we know

We can’t go empty-handed

So we ask about the birds

How much?

Ed says’ twenty and Bonnie corrects him

Forty.

She is kind, to be sure

She gives my daughter a beaded bracelet

Made in Mexico by

Women she has given years of her heart to serve

She is kind but practical

Keeper of accounts

Anchor

Sober morning

The partner every dreamer needs

We deliberate

The cardinal is the obvious choice

Brazen red and the favourite bird of my wife’s grandma

But a more humble brown bird calls out

We ask Ed what kind of bird it is

And he consults a little guidebook where

It turns out

All of these birds came from

We buy the brown bird

Weave our goodbyes with thank yous and hopes to return

And walk out the front door

Back into reality

But not before

Ed scurries out after us

Holding a secret in his hands

The cardinal cupped so gently it might be breathing

Ed gives it to us

Whispers thank you

And go quickly

—

It seems likely, this cold Easter morning,

We may never return

And if we do the Larsons may not be there

88 is old

Even for a folk-artist

I lay in bed and watch