Monthly Archives: April 2017

April 16, 2017 Poem: “Letter to the Moon at Easter”

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Letter to the Moon at Easter

Dear Yellow Pear,

Bitten, swallowed,
discarded, then always
waxing afresh,

Do you know you are
woven like yellow ribbon
into every Easter,
a holiday of renewal
here on Earth?
It’s true.

Your dance
keeps weaving
back and forth over
that slow and stately
ellipse, the Sun’s fiery
progress through our year.

Down here, we wait
in the frozen dark
for his coach of flaming
brandy, of sparking,
rain-soaked prisms,
to speed up.

When at last his circuit
reaches waxing equinox,
exactly balancing day with night,
then we wait next for you,
to wax fullest, shine
your soft, yellowed ivory
glow over our black seas;

Then we further wait until
we all agree with our paper
calendars and blood-soaked
human history, that we
have survived and
can enjoy one more
Sunday.

You wouldn’t understand
completely, but for us
the pink of ham and jelly beans,
the white of lamb fleece
and trumpet-shaped lilies,
and one old story of miracle
all help us trust in
our own renewal.

We want to continue.
We watch this young rabbit,
brown-speckled, hungry,
graze on the sweet green grass,
then see her hop, leap

Into a meadow of blue flowers
and disappear. The pear trees
wave white blooms heavy with scent.
We take heart, try to cast out fear,
in these pastures of

Our northern hemisphere,
and dare to hope we will still be here,
with you,
to be part of it all next year.

Leslie Schultz

HAPPY EASTER!  HAPPY SPRING!  LESLIE

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April 15, 2017 Poem: “Easter Blooms”; Photography by Julia Denne

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Easter Blooms
for Julia Denne

When the earth warms
and is riven by rain,
pasque flowers rise,
again, through the straw
of last year, aglow
with the palest hues,
their soft haloes
pulsing with winds.

Nearby, the porcelain-
white, egg-white petals
of bloodroot lift off
from deep-dyed
rhizomes and red
fibrous nests, their green
and lobed leaves still furled,
like praying hands.

Today, they carpet
the still-leafless woodlands
like tiny fallen stars,
in magnitudes
that rocket the mind
toward infinity,
natural benignity,
perhaps even mercy.

Leslie Schultz

My thanks go to Julia Denne, whose beautiful photographs (used here by permission) inspired today’s poem!

The delicacy and brevity of these woodland flowers that emerge even before our northern trees leaf out signals spring to me, even more than the lengthening days or the sight of returning migratory birds. This year in Northfield, the profusion is greater than I can ever remember, and this week, dodging between rain drops, I have been out trying to capture a few images myself, which I might perhaps share in the days to come. For now, I am grateful to see these even earlier blooms from a few hundred miles south. Thank you, Julia!

LESLIE

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April 14, 2017 Poems: A Trio of Clerihews for Benjamin Franklin

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A Trio of Clerihews for Benjamin Franklin

Ben Franklin was no fella
to lift a limp umbrella.
On stormy days, it was he
who lofted that kite with electrified key.

Is Franklin the source of every invention?
That would be his own contention;
with lightning rods, smoke-less stoves, bifocals,
and more, he stands benefactor to us, the yokels.

Still, when I think about Benjamin Franklin,
there is something prickly and ranklin.’
Through the lenses of his inventive glasses
he seems to be laughing at us.

Leslie Schultz

Today, I followed the prompt from the NaPoWriMo site to write a little humorous poem called the Clerihew. If you are curious about the form, visit the NaPoWriMo site using the link below. I found I had such a wealth of material in my subject that I ended up writing three!

For anyone who has read the English satirical classic 1066 and All That, or enjoyed an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus or Jeeves and Wooster, you will recognize the strain of humor straight away. Harder than it looks, but fun to attempt! (Full disclosure: I am listening now to a seventeen-cassette audio book version of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. It creeps into every conversation!)

The photos below come from the college visit trip I made with Julia last year to Philadelphia.

LESLIE

“A penny saved…”

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April 13, 2017 Poems: “Four Medallions: Inspired by Photographs from Karla Schultz”

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NaPoWriMo 2017 April 13

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Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly, Chapel Hill, South Carolina (photo: Karla Schultz)

Papilio glaucus

Common,
your tiger stripes,
Tiger Swallowtail, are
uncommonly elegant on
mauve bloom.

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Hummingbird Moth, Raleigh, South Carolina (photo: Karla Schultz)

Macroglossum stellatarum

Daylight
forager, you
sip nectar, chug sweetness,
Hummingbird Moth, until stars
whiten.

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Goldfinch, Chapel Hill, South Carolina (photo: Karla Schultz)

 Spinus tristis

Rising
from thistle-down~
motley-golden-khaki~
your waved-shaped flights weave one year,
Goldfinch.

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Dawn with Seagull, Amelia Island, Florida (photo: Karla Schultz)

Laridae

Each dawn
finds you, Seagull,
on the freshly made shore—
a new day, golden ideas
cast up.

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Today, on my sister’s birthday, I am celebrating Karla’s patience, skill, and artistry in capturing these amazing images from the natural world. Her work continues to amaze and inspire me. I have learned so much from studying not only her images but the wealth of science to which they offer me access. Her photographs feel like passports out of my human mind into the lives of flowers, trees, birds, insects, reptiles, and other mammals.

Thank you, Karla, for sharing your art with me and the world. Happy Birthday! May the year ahead be filled with exciting moments of beautiful discovery.

Leslie

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April 12, 2017 Poem “Embellishment”

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NaPoWriMo 2017 April 12

Embellishment
(A Condensed Autobiography)

I first encountered coffee
in my mother’s kitchen,
thought its scent delicious
but its taste rank, odious.

It was in college that I began
savoring it, requiring it.
I learned the beguilements
of dark roast in Louisiana.
(Ah! Graduate school! Where I studied
the intensity of Community Coffee,
crystals dark as embers
igniting every morning!)

When did I first stumble upon whole beans?
Yes, in Minnesota, as a writer, grinding
out words, with serious dollars
and deadlines swirling my brain.

These points of my caffeine dream
I recall clearly. But when did coffee
reach beyond sugar and cream?
Become latté? Transform from
the quotidian nightmare
of T.S. Eliot into something
more Venetian, more sublime,
and now presented with ephemeral,
foaming, graphic appeal—all
just a short stroll
from my house in Northfield?

Leslie Schultz

Coffee with Myrna, Brick Ovens

Wishing you a good morning and a satisfying-to-the-last-drop day!

LESLIE

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