Yesterday, I snapped this picture of an ash tree on the edge of our driveway:

This morning, I awoke to the roar of chainsaws.

One never really knows what the new day will hold, what will suddenly topple or stand the test of time. Yet what occurs is always interesting to me, even if unsettling. Here is a bit of the downed tree I claimed from the pile in the street. It seems to me to comment on the hoped-for longevity of the porch pillars of our 1905 house.

Context for “Baraboo Haiku” for April 15, 2026:

Periodically, I stumble over my cache of vintage family papers. Remember when pencils and picture postcards and penny stamps carried the day? Antecedents for pix and pixels and posts on blogs such as this?

This postcard was sent more than 100 years ago from my father’s grandmother, Katherine Hinman Williamson Schultz to her daughter, Isabelle. Kate is an important daily presence in my life, although I don’t recall meeting her. I wore her dress when I married Tim. She was a professional musician–piano and organ–and was also the family poet. (Her high school diploma hangs on our living room wall and served as the template for the one we crafted for Julia.) I know her only through stories, through a few documents and photographs, and through lines written in her hand. (Her diary is in my possession. One of the last entries, in quavery ink, was on April 17, 1960, in which she notes meeting infant me.) Her kindnesses shine through the obscuring years between us. And this one ephemeral communication sparked today’s slight poem.

I think she would be happy to know that Julia, too, studied piano and voice, just like her own red-haired daughter, Isabelle.

In Kate’s honor, I wrote out the first draft of this poem in pencil. I hope those yoked camels wintered in arid Texas or Mexico.

Until tomorrow, and all it holds,

LESLIE