Sunday Postcard to the Past
Earth Day, 2018

Sited by Giotto, best viewed from the east,
as sun rises over the green-rimmed bowl
of Florentine hills, you, bell tower, stand
alone in your old, sacred neighborhood,
lofty as a basketball player or
factory chimney. Sonic silo, housing
seven named bells, we climbed your four hundred
steps sometime in the last gone century.

It was early. We were happy, younger,
open to every view. You, campanile,
dressed in spumoni marble appliqué
without, were rough-hewn within: gritty, dim,
stronger than centuries or human life.
I remember—at each stage, as we climbed—
looking down through your center: your timbers
black as iron with age, your bells silent.

Leslie Schultz

Wishing you a warm and relaxed Earth Day! Fittingly, this first Siberian scilla bloomed today, along the rough edge of our limestone foundation. May new ideas bloom for you today, whatever your climate.  Leslie

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