Window
  
  
 If eyes are windows
 to the soul,
 then do panes of glass
 allow us to pass
 into the spirit of a house,
 a ship, an old barn?
  
 One cavernous space,
 now a wrecked cairn
 of splintered wood
 once stood 
 against snow and wind
 at the home place
  
 where my husband was born.
 Though now disappeared,
 like a rejected draft, torn,
 carted off, I recall its cool
 majesty on a hot day;
 the scents of long-ago cut hay
  
 mingling with motor oil,
 alfalfa, and old timber;
 the way its echoes would change
 the timbre of my voice 
 to undersea splendor; 
 and the way the sun poured
  
 like transcendent, light rain
 from the high window
 above the always-open door.
 Unprepossessing from outside,
 the barn held an ample store
 of quiet dignity inside.
  
  
 Leslie Schultz 

The real-life orientation of this photograph is a quarter-turn to the left. This barn at Red Oaks Farm, where Tim and his siblings grew up, was long, like a semi-circular stand of wooden hoops or like a stand of juniper, low against the wind. Recently, it was the wind that did it in, flattened it like a cardboard box. Somehow, though, it looks right to me this way, and so the print I keep on my desk has this orientation, and it was the inspiration for today’s poem. Here are some other images of that now-disappeared landmark.

Thinking about windows this week makes me smile because so many people (in Northfield and probably in every city) are placing stuffed toys in their windows to cheer children lonely for their friends. Walks with their parents in the spring sun can turn into a bear hunt or toy safari. I started participating before Easter, and just recently found one a bear large enough for a child to see easily from the street. (It was one that Julia was given by Mary Alice Sipfle at my baby shower, and it was a great nighttime comfort for our daughter, twenty years ago, when the two were the same height.)

Yesterday, because my door was open, I saw a flash of tiny red sundress–like spotting a cardinal for just a moment–and heard a small voice say, “Look, Mama! It’s a BEAR!” A girl, maybe three years old–about as high as an American Girl doll, come to think of it–was walking beside her mother (who pushed the stroller). The mother was wearing a flowered sundress. Both of them looked so peaceful and connected to each other that it made me feel a little bit nostalgic. (I am prone to that these days.) I am glad I happened to overhear that snippet of conversation, because I was thinking that our street seems to be mostly construction workers grinding old asphalt these days, and that maybe the bear looked a bit ludicrous and woebegone.

Today, I think I will open the cupboard under the eaves and see if there isn’t a friend in there who could join the bear in cheery sentry duty.

Happy Shakespeare’s Birthday! LESLIE

Though this year my poem for April 23 is not inspired by William Shakespeare, of course, on his 404th birthday, he is on all of our minds! If you are looking for a short, lighthearted birthday waltz with the Bard, take a look at this video from the Great River Shakespeare Festival called “Shakespeare’s Test Kitchen” or watch along as at 9:20 CST 154 actors participate in a marathon reading of the sonnets. (Thanks to GRSF for the image above!) Here is information about how to participate–though you might have to type in (rather than click on) the links below, as I copied them from an email.

And don’t forget, for all of you who enjoy the sonnet form, to consider submitting a sonnet or three to the annual Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest, also sponsored by the Great River Shakespeare Festival. You have plenty of time–the deadline is June 1!