Driving Through Rain
The sweeping arm
of the rear-view wiper
slices through rain
like a metronome.
Reliable reaper
creates, recreates
one brief shape
of singing water.
Palladian window,
open an instant,
allows a glimpse
of the recent past.
Accelerating,
I travel through
dissolving tunnels,
collapsing time.
Leslie Schultz
Until Tomorrow!
Leslie
Celebrating William Shakespeare
on the Four-Hundredth Anniversary of His Death
Four centuries gone, but still we fill our lungs,
vying to offer praises just to you.
You enrich our minds and silver our tongues
and help our souls enlarge a little, too.
As English speakers in a brave new world
of cyber snares and near-constant streaming,
we raise pixilated banners, all unfurled,
in homage to you, who sets us dreaming,
bequeaths us gems like “All the world’s a stage”
from the golden casket of the First Folio;
allows immortals to leap off the page.
(Recall those capers cut by grim Malvolio?)
Today, we’re all your inheritors still,
receiving from you, sweet William, what you will.
Leslie Schultz
Today, April 23, is the day I (like most people) celebrate as Shakespeare’s birthday, and it is also the day of record for his death in 1616. After seeing Hamlet at the Guthrie (with Randall Duk Kim in the leading role) and then two classes at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with Professor Standish Henning, I had fallen in love with Shakespeare’s sonnets and his plays and knew it was a lifelong passion.
Until tomorrow!
Leslie
A Small Song for the Vast Mother
(Earth Day, 2016)
Fresh blows the wind on the mountain slopes.
Fresh the green lace on the maple boughs.
Sweet the scent of the waking soil.
Sweet the sound of the glassy rain.
Deep the roots of the growing prairie.
Deep the fires in the ancient seas.
Here, we are cradled in moonlight and starlight.
Here, we rise with the traveling sun.
Now, we turn, with wisdom and insight.
Now, we see what must be done.
Leslie Schultz
Happy Earth Day!
Until tomorrow!
Leslie
Northfield Today: Finding and Keeping
The lark finds sweet music in greening trees
and carries a song in its yellow-gold throat.
Today, you can find such treasure with ease
to tuck in a pocket of a spring raincoat.
It’s Poem in Your Pocket Day all day long.
Like nests filled with eggs, red boxes are out.
Somewhere in Northfield, your own special song
is waiting for you as you fly about
running errands or sipping café-au-lait,
or buying a cupcake or loaf of bread,
or finding a book to brighten your day
as you dream of a story to read in bed.
It’s today! What new lifelong-friend-of-a-poem will leap into your pocket?
It’s waiting: your own portable,(zip-to-another-realm) word-rocket.
Leslie Schultz
Okay, so I know I get a little overly excited in April, and when Poem in Your Pocket Day arrives I can feel positively giddy. Honestly, though, what could be better than being a poet and living in a place where so many other people are also excited about how poetry enriches life?
Yesterday, I was out along Division Street and saw a few of the poems winging their way to us. Here is one:
This one is a new Sidewalk Poem by Lori Stolz, so it has earned a permanent place in the pavements in our town. For a limited time only, a paper copy can flutter into your personal library.
If you find that perfect-for-you poem on your travels today, please let me know.
Until tomorrow!
Leslie
Gravitational Pull
(Or, Why I Am Drawn to Write Poems)
After the Big Bang of my own small birth,
That explosion into cold air and consciousness,
I yearned to experience life on this turning earth.
Like you, I became my own witness,
My own black box recording device.
I notice the joys of taking off, of soaring;
That confidence of cruising altitude
And the power of all engines humming;
As well the certainties of humdrum descent—
The end of a day, a current era—aware
Of one guarantee: one day going down
In flames, arcing to a place of no return.
Hoping only to leave one lingering word or two:
My shifting joys and sorrows, my point of view.
Leslie Schultz
I suppose this is a continuation of yesterday’s trio of brief images comparing flight and writing.
Until Tomorrow!
Leslie