Author Archives: Leslie Schultz

April 22, 2020 Poem “Vantage Point” in Honor of Earth Day’s 50th Anniversary

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Earth Day Flag (Designed by Peace Activist John McConnell)
 
 
 

 Vantage Point
             April 22, 2020—50th Anniversary of Earth Day
                         for Beth 
  
  
 There is a little climb ahead.
 It is worth it. I promise.
  
 Yes. These prairie grasses are tall,
 already, in April.
 It is hard to see the trail today.
 But it is there, made by feet before us.
  
 Look! A pleated gentian, blue as the sea.
 And a pink wild rose, sister
 to the apple and strawberry. Here’s the flick
 and bob of the prairie warbler, olive gold
 with a voice like silver bells. And over there,
 past the orb-weaving spider in her web,
 can it be a small stand of cacti, sheltering
 against a wall of white sand? 
  
 Yes. I see some char, some broken glass.
 I guess that is natural, too.
  
 There is a compass plant, something to steer by,
 almost as tall as a tree. And there is the lone cedar, shaped
 by the wind, reaching, reaching…
  
 Sure. Take a moment to catch your breath
 under this immense blue. It is true,
 there are a few storm clouds on the horizon
 infused with the colors of abalone, holding
 the rattle of thunder. Let us hope for some streaks
 of Promethean fire. 
  
 Tonight, the new moon
 offers new beginnings: Tomorrow 
 and all the tomorrows ahead.
  
  
 Leslie Schultz


I have been thinking a lot this spring about how the first Earth Day, back in 1970, arose from the catalyst of photographic vision–both scientific and poetic–from NASA’s first images of Earth from the vantage point of the Moon. We saw in a flash, it seemed, that this is a single if intricate whole that all of us share. We saw the beauty and the fragility, and that we are in this together–not just humanity but all of the forms life takes. That profound insight help to shape progressive legislation and a shared vision. I believe we are all experiencing something like that now, in this pandemic that knows no borders. My hope is that going forward we will be able to act on this insight so as to enlarge our sense of compassion and belonging, our confidence in the effectiveness of individual and collective actions to make a positive difference.

I think today’s poem might be a pencil sketch for a longer, more complicated poem that looks at the lives and works of John Muir, Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, and Gaylord Nelson. Perhaps others, too. On April 22, 2017, I published this villanelle, “Motif for Ansel Adams”, inspired by his own words. (I included there a link to a six-minute documentary–“Ansel Adams: Photography with Intention”.) I would like to do something similar for these other environmentalists, but I see I will need more than one day to think all that through.

When I was in high school, I received a writing award from the National Council of Teachers of English, and afterwards a signed letter from Senator Gaylord Nelson congratulating me. I wish I had known then of his stellar environmental record and of his own (much more influential) literary accomplishments. Now on my wish list? His last book, published in 2002: Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the Promise. I see there is also a new edition of Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac with an introduction by Barbara Kingsolver. At the urging of our friends, the Clarys, we have already ordered a copy of the documentary, Tomorrow. I hope it comes today.

Meanwhile, I shall just take it one step, one breath, at a time. Perhaps today will be the day for a trip to the McKnight Prairie Remnant near our home. If conditions are right. The vantage point there is unparalleled.

Happy Earth Day! LESLIE

Julia and Tim at the Aldo Leopold Home Site in Sand County, WI (Photo: Karla Schultz)
Compass Point, Winona Street Labyrinth, Winter

April 21, 2020 Poem “Umbrage”

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 Umbrage
  
  
 Drat! 
  
 I thought I had got rid of this, but here 
 it is in my pocket, a small
 sticky ball,

 this inert, charred bolus
 of fetid emotions, unsightly feeling
 of being affronted.
  
 Some days, just in case, 
 I used to take it with me, but tight-zipped.
 Snapped. Furled. 
  
 And then, I really thought I had dropped it,
 just let it go. But 
 it turns out
  
 NO!
  
  
 Leslie Schultz

April 20, 2020 Poem “Tour”

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 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


April 19, 2020 Poem “Still”

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 Still
     for Tim
  
  
 We met one April evening long ago.
 I make a count of fifteen thousand days....
 Could I have known then what now I know,
 that I’d still be enchanted by your ways
  
 decades and decades on? How can that be?
 We’ve made a daughter, a garden, a home.
 Our shared life is now my reality
 too large to distill for one small poem.
  
 We’ve learned how to dance in our garden rows,
 singing the songs that make our heads spin—
 eyes on the stars, perhaps stepping on toes,
 and still laughing despite the pain and the woes.
  
 Our love is deep-planted and here to stay,
 so I can still whisper, “Love? Let’s sail away.”
  
  
 Leslie Schultz


Could there be a more appropriate time for a love poem than in April? While Tim and I celebrate our wedding anniversary in early August, we met when I was a freshman in college and he was a graduate student on a balmy April evening. Last night, we were talking about what a turning point that was for us–Fate? Destiny? Karma? Just plain luck? Hard to say, but I know I am profoundly grateful that we did meet in this lifetime. I can think of no better companion.

These days of sheltering in place have, if anything, thrown that insight of good fortune into even higher relief for me. Sequesterd with anyone else, I might well be climbing the walls! Instead we are busy building cold frames for vegetables; planning rabbit-proof fences for the garden; toasting the brilliant stellium of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars; watching episodes of The Great Tours of France and nibbling Brie; exploring the muddy back roads between Northfield and the Mississippi River; and dreaming of booking an afternoon’s sail on the Schooner Hjordis out of Grand Marais.

Tim and I will both welcome the cessation of these current restrictions, but still, slowing down to focus on essentials has been instructive. I can’t imagine a foxhole that is more like a Hobbit hole–good humor, good books, good food, good company–and that is all due to him.

Thanks, Tim!