Index:

• March Inside Cover Collage (above)
• Outside Cover Collage
• Editor’s Note: “Showing up!”
• March Schedule
• March Gardening Tips
• Tree of the Month: Black Willow
  • “It is commonly found near streams, ponds and
    wetland edges, often growing with multiple stems
    where fallen trees have rooted along the
    length of their original boles (main stem).”
  • “Because willows are among the earliest plants to provide flowers in spring, they are some of the earliest, most important food sources for pollinators, according to Julia Kuzovkina, a professor at UConn’s Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture.”
• International Women’s Day
  • ‘Bread for all, and Roses, too’
  • March 8: a day of celebration, protest and revolution!

If anyone wants to send in some short, clean writing with a clear call to action or motif, or art you’d like to share with attribution, please send to eastrockgazette@gmail.com.

Editor’s Note

Volume XVIII: What troubled times do come to pass.
How can the average person get by, lest succeed, with
such heavy hands reaching down, pulling out resources
and dividing the people? When will those in the valleys,
cracks and crevices of society be able to see the sun?

The news may seem choking, unending and morbid. It
should. There is so much instability right now, and the
world continues to be more complex, and out of control
for the everyday individual. It may feel as though we
sit more alone, in dark houses without eggs, on busier
streets with less conversations, in old bars next to now
empty seats. In vast deserts without rain. Razed forests.
Stumps without roots.

It doesn’t feel right to spew poetic garbage right now,
as so many challenges pile up in front of our eyes (and
cries for help ring out to our ears). So I’ll keep it simple:
There ain’t no rest for the wicked, or anyone for that
matter. If there was, that time has passed.

To this I say: look at your hands, and those beside you.
Stop waiting for change and make it —
where you can, when you can.

That means starting small, and saying hello. Shaking
your neighbors hand and asking, “Where are you from?”
or “How have you been?” It means showing up for causes
and people important to you and having the courage to
ask questions, or say yes. Or often even harder, say NO.

Not every person can solve every problem. But together,
anything is possible. Make an effort to look past
differences, and you will see the strength in each other’s
common ground. Listen to others’ stories, appeal to their
sensibilities and work together to get the most done.

Support others, and ask for nothing in return. Only
then can we break through the ceiling and see the
morning sky. In all its glory — pink, blue, and gold too!

Change starts today. Stay safe, stay warm and please,
stay present. – JB