April 29, 2025 Context for Poem “Announcement of Imminent Departure”

Posted on April 29, 2025 by Leslie Schultz

Today’s poem, “Announcement of Imminent Departure,” springs from daily life, spins a poem from a recent confluence of conversation and weather, and a recognition of the inevitable fleeting brevity of each moment. Here is a snippet of what I learned this morning, after I was alerted to the meaning of certain configurations of bird flight from my sister, Karla.

“Kettling apparently serves as a form of avian communication—an announcement of imminent departure—as well as a way of gaining altitude and conserving strength.”

As I wrote today’s poem, I was also thinking of how our mutual celebration of National Poetry Month draws to a close tomorrow, making way for something new.

Wishing you good weather and good cheer–LESLIE

April 28, 2025 Context for Poem “Fashioning” & Some Highlights from “Art in Bloom” at the Minneapolis Institute of Art

Posted on April 28, 2025 by Leslie Schultz

The influence on today’s poem that I knew at once was my visit yesterday with Tim and my sister, Karla, to the Minneapolis Institute of Art to see the annual extravaganza that is Art in Bloom. Previous posts have featured past years’ intersections between the art in the museum’s permanent collections and the creativity of the area’s floral artists.

The influence I only realized as I was preparing this post was my love of a poem by William Butler Yeats called “A Coat.” If you don’t know it, or if you want to reread it now, it is available on the Poetry Foundation website HERE.

Now I am intrigued by “Miss Lily Place.” “Prodigious shopper in the Suq”! Really, one cannot make these things–even these names–up!

People watching is as much fun–maybe more fun–than seeing the permanent art and the ephemeral floral creations inspired by it. My favorite image is the penultimate one!

Why not flaunt your style today!

April 27, 2025 Context for Poem “Noli Me Tangere”

Posted on April 27, 2025 by Leslie Schultz

Today’s poem is a straight-forward seasonal inspiration from the garden. I always cheer to see these tiny, luminous spring ephemerals. Sometimes the timing of their blooming has coincided with Memorial Day and I have included them in bouquets I have made to place on the graves of Corrine and Elvin Heiberg in nearby Oak Lawn Cemetary. Now, researching them for this morning’s poem, I am aware not only of the power of their beauty but of their powerful poisons–not sure I will pick them again. If I do, it will be with caution and even more reverence.

Wishing you a day of discoveries without dangers!

April 25, 2025 Context for Poem “Common Yarrow”

Posted on April 25, 2025 by Leslie Schultz

Again, I am filling in the gap left by Rosendahl (no entries for “Y” in his otherwise extensive glossary.) I think yarrow, a member of the aster family, is very beautiful, and I am drawn to its pungent scent. I also love that it can, warrior-like, hold its own against the juglone secreted by our black walnuts. Today’s poem, “Common Yarrow,” rises out of my explorations into the botanical name for common yarrow (Achillea millefolium) and the plant’s presence in human history in Europe and Asia. Thinking about the different histories and uses of this familiar garden flower helped me to get to know it a little better. I will be tucking a little more yarrow into our garden in the coming weeks!

April 24, 2025 Context for Poem “California Flipbook”

Posted on April 24, 2025 by Leslie Schultz

*Red Hot Pokers in Point Arena, California*

Lacking a Rosendahl entry for the Letter “X,” I decided to use the term “xeric,” which means “dry” or “arid.” That term brought back recent memories of my trip with Tim to the California coast last August. The poem, “California Flipbook,” draws on these memories and images taken late last summer, when the air was smoky from wild fires was ablaze near Chico, and the natural world was at once fragrant and beautiful but also demonstrably stressed and fragile.