Postcard: Easter 2019
Author Archives: Leslie Schultz
“Umbrellas” for April 21, 2019
Umbrellas
Upturned blossoms
open on rainy days,
the weather necessary
for thirsty upright flowers.
Windborne colonies,
they travel along sidewalks,
especially now, when April
showers are bringing trills
of robins. Clouds will part;
the dome of egg-blue
will return. Until then,
bumper crops of bright
bumpershoots fill
our lowered skies,
protect our heads,
delight our eyes.
Leslie Schultz
Yep. Today, it is raining again, here in Northfield, Minnesota, but today I am looking on the bright side! Many thanks to model Mattie Lufkin–Mattie, you bring sunshine wherever you go!
LESLIE
“Trillium” for April 20, 2019
Trillium
We have a singular one
in our back garden
at the foot of the elm.
Each spring it rises
in a trio of tiers:
leaves, sepals, petals.
It offers a time-lapse
waltz of color change:
white satin, berry pink, ash.
Leslie Schultz
I first learned about these woodland flowers when I was a child in Oregon. When we moved to Northfield, we planted one at the base of our American Elm. Both are still healthy! Our trillium should be blooming in a few weeks, and this year I intend to take some photographs of it when it is fully pink. (The first and second images are from our garden. The middle image was taken at the Northfield Post Office.) Until I was able to observe this single plant, I did not know how the starlight-white of the new trillium bloom turns pink as it ages. Botanically, I read that this results from self-generated anthocyanins–triggered by stress or aging–with the goal of reclaiming and conserving the nutrients in the petals that the trillium is throwing away. I don’t fully understand that mechanism, but I find myself wondering about the way humans seem to move oppositely along the color spectrum–from rosy baby to white-haired elder.
As evidence, I submit the following from a dozen years ago! Below is an image taken at Village on the Cannon. Julia and I are waiting for our Spanish lesson with Susan Hvistendahl and celebrating that a trio of my photographs are on the wall. Today, I note that my face then was rosier, my hair less threaded with white just a decade ago.
Happy Saturday! LESLIE
“Sylvan” for April 19, 2019
Sylvan
for James Peter Danielsen
I have it now,
my great-grandfather’s axe.
Once upon a time,
he was a woodcutter
in the Old Country.
Still a young man, he came
to Oneida County
to swing his axe
as a lumberjack
in the Northwoods.
When I knew him,
in the Paper Valley
of the Fox River,
he was retired from the mills.
He had silver hair,
well-cut suits,
a gentle smile,
His Danish vowels flowed
musically like a spring
brook over smooth stones.
We called him Grandpa Jim.
He married Mae late,
she with blue eyes as cold
as the Danish sea, a tongue
sharp as a switchblade.
I don’t have his blood,
or his slender, elegant bones.
Just this axe, and its echo
ringing to fell green trees, and
our shared reverence for paper.
Leslie Schultz
“Ramshackle” for April 18, 2019
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
