Ramshackle
The house on the headland,
once snug,
is now ransacked by wind,
pelted by rain,
invaded by small seeds
seeking to catch hold
in a new place.
Needle grasses burst
through floorboards.
White petals cling,
fresh découpage,
to fading blue wallpaper.
Saplings pierce the shingles.
And all summer, bees patrol.
Leslie Schultz
Quasar
“Quasi-stellar”:
nefarious stolen light,
pulsating power,
whirling disk of hot gas—
electric! magnetic!
organized around
a black hole
that consumes galaxies,
sucks them in.
Ah, mystery solved.
There are people
like that,
powerful ones
who want to be stars.
I watch them
from a distance.
I try
not
to be
s
u
c
k
e
d
i
n
.
Leslie Schultz
Paris
Notre-Dame de Paris, how can you burn?
I watch the compass needle of your spire.
Your glow flares and falls, and so I must mourn.
I have walked beside you, consecrated urn,
who anchors passions and banks human fire.
Heart of the City of Light, how can you burn?
My footsteps echoed inside you. I could discern
your perfume distilled from fervent desire.
Your glow flares and falls; your city must mourn.
Stone Mother, Grey Lady, where shall we turn?
Our hearts are heavy with praise and useless ire.
Notre-Dame de Paris, how can you burn?
Could your serene blue gaze help us learn
to sing on despite this ruined choir?
Your glow flares and falls, and all France must mourn.
Our Eternal Lady, you shall return,
but today we weep as you seem to expire.
Notre-Dame de Paris, how can you burn?
Your glow flares and falls, and the world must mourn.
Leslie Schultz
Like everyone, I am shocked and devasted by the sight of flames engulfing, yesterday, the gothic church of Notre-Dame de Paris. I was last there ten years ago, with my dear friend and my daughter, and I keep thinking about the contrast between the joy then and the great sadness now.
For me, a cri de coeur requires form to contain it. Perhaps that is why this poem came as a villanelle. Though any response I can make seems wholly inadequate, I offer this poem and these photographs, all taken on March 24, 2009. From the dawn-lit window of our small hotel to Sainte Chapelle, Pont Saint-Michel, the Seine, a small couscous restaurant on the Left Bank,–all were taken in the vicinity of Notre-Dame that happy day.
Olive Trees
Gift, we are told, of Owl-eyed Athena,
she of the gaze like sun-polished steel,
but I think always of soft Italy,
the countryside greening in early spring.
I recall those powerfully stunted trunks
rising from earth that still-cool day in March,
trees ringing the walls circling a hill town.
Monteriggioni—aloof, untaken—
had inspired Dante, served as his blueprint
for impregnable Hell’s ninth rung. Our car
was banned, but entry was easy for us,
seeking lunch at a famed restaurant. Doves
roosted in the stone chill of the entrance:
cooing, dropping feathers, lime, wisps of straw.
Forsythia spiked golden against church stones.
Cobbles rang. We heard noon bells. Soon, Easter
would arrive. We ate light egg pasta, sipped
dark red local wine marked authentically
with black rooster-marks of true Chianti.
The stripped-bare restroom offered elegant
austerity, just a hole in the floor
with two stone footprints—welcome suggestions
for the slightly befuddled foreign guest—
paper, and a tiny basin, a latch
on the door. Needs must and not a thing more.
Refreshed, cleansed, we passed back through the ancient
opening, returned to our winding road.
Descending on foot. we paused to glance back:
fourteen linked towers against the sky, soft
white flowers, fresh, resting on glaucous points.
The storied olive’s silver-blue-green leaves
made fluttering pennants near the car park.
Leslie Schultz
Nocebo
I am the dark flip of the diagnostic coin,
treatment titrated into trauma.
Inert as chalk, yet I circle in the mind
summoning dark outcomes,
torquing healing powers
against themselves, imagination
metastasizing as fear. No matter
where you look, “Hey! Over here!”
precise warnings serve as spores
fruited by a lively brain
threading unravelling and pain.
I do harm. I fall like rain.
Leslie Schultz
Last night, I wondered idly if today’s title might be “Narwhale” or “Notorious” or “Negotiate.” But….no.
I have long thought that fretting is an abuse of the imagination, so when I catch myself at it, I seek ways to short-circuit that. Recently, I learned that the term “placebo” has an antonym, and this poem sprang from that.
Some of the images here come from two past exhibitions of the American Swedish Institute: “Mansion in Mourning” (October 1-November 1, 2016) and “Quilting Art Today and The Nordic Quilts” (June 18-October 30, 2016)
