April 6, 2025 Context for Poems “Sometimes Love” and “Just After Dawn”

Photo: Leslie Schultz “Union Terrace–UW-Madison”

The botanical term for today is “filiform” which (again!) is derived from Latin, this one from the word for “thread.” It is related to the word “filament.” I fell in love with its sound. Immediately, it made me think of spider webs–not botanical or accurate–(although I see that late Latin used the verb “filare”, meaning “to spin”). Now, I suspect, the spider web will join with “filiform” in a persistent association for me. And it offered me a chance to share again some favorite images from past posts.

Today, after “catching” two slight poems, small webs of words, I needed to disentangle myself.

It is sunny here and will be warm and lovely. The house is quiet. It seems like the perfect time to tackle those self-renewing sticky indoor spider webs that old houses simply generate without permission or cessation, and also to ply some thread in the borders of a small wall quilt that I am finishing.

(Photo: Leslie Schultz Window–Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, California)
(Photo: Karla Schultz Dewy Web)
(Photo: Leslie Schultz Spider Web, Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, California)
(Photo: Leslie Schultz, Frozen Web, Our House)

Wishing you a happy Sunday!

It is Sonnet Season! Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest–2025–Open Until June 1, 2025

2025 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest
Call for Entries

Entries are now being accepted for the 2025 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. The entry process is a one-step system. Sonnet(s) must be submitted with the Entry Form. Complete instructions for entering are available on our website.

The Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest is an annual event that welcomes entries from around the world. Cash prizes, totaling over $3,000, will be awarded in several categories.

For more complete information, please click on the link below:

sonnetcontest.org

The deadline for entries is June 1, 2025. Submissions should be made through our on-line process, with payment option by PayPal or check. If this process presents a hardship, instructions for entering by mail will be provided upon request. Just send us an email.

entries@sonnetcontest.org

I love sonnets! The form is perennially engaing, long enough for complexity but short enough to memorize. I expect to be sharing a few newly minted ones this April. And I am looking forward to reading all the entries for the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. If you have any newly minted sonnets now–or come to have any before June 1–why not submit one or more to this wonderful contest. (Check out previous winning entries at the contest website.)

Happy writing! Happy spring!

Leslie

Rose Made of Palm Frond

Point Arena Lighthouse, Labyrinth, and the National Art Line Project

Last August, in celebration of our anniversary, Tim and I traveled to California and Oregon. It was a many-faceted trip. We started in the Bay Area. After a live-changing lunch at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, we drove up the coast to spend a couple of nights at Point Arena Lighthouse. Why? My friend, Marilyn Larson, a labyrinth designer, collaborated with her friend, labyrinth designer Lea Goode-Harris, to create plans for a labyrinth for the Outdoor Museum at the lighthouse. (If you scroll down a bit, you can find information about this amazing site.) This outdoor artwork, installed to help encourage inner-and outer peace, is the western start (or terminus, depending on your orientation!) of a transnational line of such imaginative places that can all be found along the 39th parallel, including the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio and flowing to Cape May, New Jersey.

As you can imagine, I took lots and lots of photos. Tim also took a 360-degree short video of the labyrinth. Upon our return, Marilyn and Lea urged us to write a bit about our encounter. We did, and it can be found online: HERE is a link the an article Tim and I wrote.

And to learn more about the Art Line Project, HERE is the link. (Many thanks to Toby Evans of Sagebrush Exchange for her excellent summary of the Art Line Project.)

If you are ever near Point Arena, California, this is a delightful place to stay or to visit during a free hour.

LESLIE