Tour
for Estelle Uleberg Swanson
Not so long ago, I heard her tell
the story. We were at her kitchen table
in the old farmhouse near Madelia.
Was she making bread? Just Estelle,
her daughter, Julia, and me. And Maggie,
the black dog, on the wooden floor.
Maybe I had mentioned my teen-age tale,
the thrill of climbing the Tour Eiffel,
then gazing out over the rainy rooftops
of Paris? Estelle kept kneading the flour,
then gestured out the window. “When
I was three, I climbed to the top
of the windmill,” she said, dividing
the dough into loaves of bread,
patting them into their metal pans.
She was playing. Her father had turned
away, then turned back, saw her, hand
over hand, ascending the steel
frame of the high Aermotor.
He followed, without a sound, fearful
she would turn around, panic. Oh, if she fell,
like a falling star!
But her gaze was far
off over the flat cornfields,
watching the grey sky shift,
form a rainbow, shimmer
like ribbons, over the blue silo.
She barely noticed her father’s arms
or felt her feet touch the safe ground.
Leslie Schultz
How helpful to know that about adding Maggie in pulled you in! (Maggie, I hear, is at the farm right now!)
What pulled me right in, this time, was the mention of Maggie. Lovely attention and invitation to detail and values — and comparison, in a good way. Thank you. Again 😉
Coming from a practiced fiction writer like you, Beth, that means so much to me. You know like to dip a toe into storytelling, but am not always sure what to do next.
I’m crazy about this poem, Leslie! Again, your way of making words bring scenes to life with all these details – the wooden floor, the loaves of bread in metal pans, followed by the steel of the windmill, Estelle’s father’s fear that she would fall like a shooting star. I love the shifting emotions and the tenderness of this poem. Well done.