Poems in Progress: #20–April 20, 2016

Number 20

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.

Sky Butterfly

Until Tomorrow!

Leslie

Poems in Progress: #19–April 19, 2016

Number 19

Trio

why do I keep them
hawk feathers–gull, goose, and crow–
with sharpened pencils

glass jar–midnight blue–
a bouquet of soft feathers
and sharpened pencils

feathers or pencils–
which is most useful to me
who dreams of flying

Leslie Schultz

Feathers Pencils

Until Tomorrow!

Leslie

Poems in Progress: #18–April 18, 2016

Number 18

Day Star
     for Jan Newman

Here in the dark, waiting
for the sun to travel again
over the curve of the earth,
its daily round,
and hearing pre-dawn birdsong,
I understand: the whole world
waits, as we did.

I think of traveling to your house,
so long ago, visiting.
Our garden chairs set beside
your red sub-tropical blooms,
the box of old negatives
at our feet, tea-dark strips of film
we layered into visors.

Laughing, we looked boldly
into the doubled dark
of that solar eclipse,
waiting,
certain as songbirds,
for the sun,
its radiant return.

Leslie Schultz

Journey Back

Journey Back

Until Tomorrow!

Leslie

Poems in Progress: #17– April 17, 2016

Number 17

A Short Garden Report

Days lengthen now, are softening.
Myriad nascent greens screen sun
through a sieve of rustling.

Willows and pussy willows wave—
long lime-hued pennants down-spilling,
kitten-halos at attention—

and even low-growing mosses,
emerging between these pink bricks,
send up thin flowers like flairs.

Leslie Schultz

Willows

Willows Two

 

Pushwillows Two

Pushwillows

Pussy Willows Close

Moss Flowers

Until Tomorrow!

Leslie