It started as a lark that spring. A few of us piled into someone’s seen-better-days automobile and drove, without a clue, toward that tiny airport covered in haze.
We were trying, I guess, to forestall all thought of the coming fall, who we would be without school. We practiced jumps, I recall, while a tiny plane circled, light and free,
as things do when leaving. The month before—- it seemed an eternity—-my brother perished. An icy turn drove him through his dark door too early, while still raw and unfinished.
Now, we were told to keep leaping off crates. Then it was time to climb into the craft, with glass altimeters strapped to our chests, to rise over fields, to plunge into updraft.
For me, this was dull aftermath, mute ode to April, busy mixing her dead land hues—-memory, desire—-for me to decode, if I could, remake them with my own hand
later, after we limped that night to the fire ring, shaken but standing, glasses and voices lifting.
Leslie Schultz
public domain photo by Guenther Dilligen (pixabay)
Smells of chalk and Elmer’s glue and hot lunch linger. Thunk of rubber balls on asphalt. On Valentine’s Day, the delicious crunch of sugar cookies with pink sprinkles. Salt
made icy sidewalks safe. Our third-grade class transformed cardboard into a Zulu hut, covering the roof and sides with bright grass made from crepe paper, green and tawny, cut
with Mrs. Munford’s sharp, black-handled shears. When we were good, we could spend time inside, use flashlights to read African books. Fears were smaller then. Or maybe not. I cried
when I sounded out pollution, then learned that our air, land, and water were sick; might die under our bad care.
Leslie Schultz
In third grade, I was lucky enough to fall in love with my teacher, Mrs. Munford. She was wise, and generously proportioned, and truly saw the best in each of her students. She taught us about China and Africa; and the turbulent history of The Stout-Hearted Seven, an authentic account of orphans alone navigating the Oregon Trail; about blood cells and constellations, and gerbils, and how seeds sprout; about multiplication tables, and arrays, and short division; and about the power of listening to whatever interests you.
When I started looking this morning, I could not locate any photos of me from that year–though in my school record book, artistically covered by my mother, there are photos for the flanking years.
Second GradeFourth Grade
Yet, I know I changed and learned a lot about myself during those nine months at Cedar Hills Elementary School. It was in second grade (across the hall) that I became mesmerized by rhyme, but it was in Mrs. Munford’s class that I started, all on my own, to write poems. I would think them up, write them down, copy them with my very best handwriting, and then illustrate them on ruled paper at home. The next day, I would turn them into my teacher, who always, always encouraged these extracurricular forays despite the many elementary mistakes I made. Mrs. Munford knew about potential and how to foster it in us. Toward the end of that year, I turned them into my first book.
Inside, I found that one of my first verses was dedicated to Mrs. Munford. I wish I could curl up, just for a few moments, again in that cardboard hut. And I wish she could read today’s new poem for her. LESLIE
Some loomed like towering infernos, I (young reader) imagined, all up rush of rages, tornadic destroyers, impartial whirlwinds of wroth.
Others shimmered like illustrations in expensive library books, slicing themselves out of their pages, scimitars raised for particular victims.
Others still—home-grown from Black Forest spores—hunkered small and slimy in garden pots, waiting to latch on: diminutive, unfocused globs of ill will.
Now, I know the worst, glimpse those who slink in the tangled dendritic forest of my brain, who rush from the angry underbrush,
those unbidden thoughts that have sometimes caught me by the throat, then kept developing, like polaroids of ugly faces,
stray impressions that rode me, causing me to snarl, to singe my own hair, before they would disappear-- shaken off (but not quite.)
Leslie Schultz
The concept of the “demon” is one I first discovered as an avid young reader of fairy tales, those of old Europe–Perrault and the Brothers Grimm–and of the Islamic Golden Age. Scheherazade seemed to me the greatest hero of all, stepping into the flaming circle of a despot’s unreasoning anger, spinning a safety net for herself and all other women through the filaments of story itself. I felt terrorized by the landscape of her world, but she showed me the core truth that art saves lives, rights corruption, soothes the spirit.
These days, for me, battling demons is less panoramic and technicolor, less Hollywood or Bollywood orKaiju.
I woke up this morning, after a peaceful sleep, thinking about how anger can ride us sometimes even when we think we are in the driver’s seat. Last week, I was startled to see this vehicle parked on a Northfield street–sort of humorous, sort of frightening. That’s the way we can all sometimes park our anger and resentment out in public under the guise of a joke or a jab or a verbal poke, isn’t it?
Behind the steering wheel of this Herman Munster-mobile appeared to be burst chains draped across the seat. Maybe it’s that easy. When we feel an angry thought, maybe we could just signal it, pull over to an appropriate curb, turn off the engine, and…walk away?
LESLIE
P.S. For contrast, here is another Scheherazade-inspired poem that came during 2017’s NaPoWriMo activity, called “A Vinyl Memory.”
My cherished friend (a sonic artist, a mother, a teacher) and I were streaming north, last month, toward a favorite museum to celebrate the creativity of all that is northern, Scandinavian, both in the old world and here, in Minnesota.
We were flying out of our tiny town, laughing because the back of winter seemed to be finally broken, the ice and injuries that had kept us cooped up far too long had migrated at last.
Ahead, (though we didn’t suspect) we’d encounter—I kid you not— a gigantic solar egg—gleaming, golden—perched on a nest of iron-brown sticks, magic and witchy, with a ladder inviting us to peer inside the padlocked
glass door forbidding entry. Here, saunic heat could hatch for humans lighted on cedar wood if they could just catch the right moment at sunset. But then and there, in late morning’s blue thaw, we watched in awe as a pair
of sandhill cranes elegantly soared across our highway, light and strong, clearly aligned with the Minnesota River. Their long necks reached, outstretched, toward their future, their making of eggs born to be broken, from the inside.
They seemed to know that the fire of life would soon be poking fierce, new sooty beaks into this burnt-out season, would demand to be fed, demand to sing and try the air. They seemed sure that parental care could renew the year, help each unfold our inborn direction.
Leslie Schultz
Like the first two poems for this April, “Compass” recounts a true story. (I am not sure whether a theme is arising or not. If so, it is an unconscious one. )
This poem, which turned out to have a fairy tale quality, is based on an excursion to the American Swedish Institute with Bonnie Jean Flom. We love the human scale of this place, its mix of old and new, in its architecture and exhibitions.
We also like its stimulating exhibitions, and the rare dining experience of the award-winning in-house restaurant, Fika. We are both photographers, with Scandinavian roots, and, on this trip, we were keen to see the work of eco-Photo Shop artist and former farmer Erik Johansson, called “Imagine” (which is up until April 28, 2019.)
“Demand and Supply”
En route to seeing “Imagine,” however, we glanced into the inner courtyard of the museum and were amazed by….what? A space pod? A Christmas pear? No, an out-sized solar egg sculpture called “Reflect” by artistic duo Bigert and Bergstrom that turned out to be also a functioning sauna, visiting Minneapolis until April 28, 2019.
Photo by Bonnie Jean Flom
Then it was back inside to savor first the masterful surreal photography, then enjoy a lunch worthy of portraiture and with flavors redolent of northern forests.
(Note the pine-flavored home-made soda, the bright surprise of the egg in the center of mushrooms and rye bread, and the golden glow of the shared pear cake dessert.)
Does time with a friend get any better than this? Well, maybe.
At the end of this enchanted day, that began with cranes flying high, there was more enchantment. We crossed to Saint Paul to visit the Goldstein Gallery on the University of Minnesota campus to see the collection of ceramics by our mutual friend, Ruth Crane.
Despite the handmade porcelains that I use every day in my kitchen, this exhibition made me understand ceramics in a whole new way. It is open until May 19, 2019.
Just before leaving the campus, Bonnie Jean and I took this double selfie!
Guess what? I have booked a Solar Egg sauna later this month. I hope I am not too relaxed to drive back home!
That was the name of my special horse, the electronic one, part of the game my daughter and I played, when homework was done, played over and over here in this room.
She was horse-mad, horse-knowing, then; saved her money for riding lessons; pondered the breeds and drew them for hours, over and over.
I don’t remember much about the aim— just that our stable held fine mares who ran like the wind, whose names all rhymed with rain, and we would call them across the finish line, over and over, a joyous refrain.
Sometimes I would urge something against the rules: “Run, Butane! Go beyond! Break free, right through the fence! Right off the screen!”
And off she went, off-grid, out of view, off on her private adventures. My coltish girl would collapse against me with laughter.
I would stroke her long, red mane, and we would talk about life and the game and happily ever after.
Leslie Schultz
(photo by Karla Schultz)
Until this morning, I had forgotten all about mighty Butane, the only horse ever entrusted to my care. As I lit a beeswax candle with a butane lighter, though, her name came back in a flash. Though only a temporary set of pixels, (aren’t we all?) Butane was a champion.
These photos of Julia from not so long ago seem from another age–the young poet riding herd over her words, near her first Sidewalk poem; the experienced rider at the end of year show; the piano student pausing to admire a tree outside her teacher’s house. Okay, I will admit to a little nostaglia as Julia rides expertly the last laps of her college career, soon to be breaking free into her own as-yet-unscripted adventures.
Meanwhile, Tim and I are enjoying our rarer times together with Julia more than ever, and are lining this empty nest with the richness of memory and with the glitter of the new, just-beyond-the-horizon insights and adventures. LESLIE
