Tag Archives: Leslie Schultz photography and poetry

“Paris” for April 16, 2019

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Paris
  
 Notre-Dame de Paris, how can you burn?
 I watch the compass needle of your spire.
 Your glow flares and falls, and so I must mourn.
  
 I have walked beside you, consecrated urn,
 who anchors passions and banks human fire.
 Heart of the City of Light, how can you burn?
  
 My footsteps echoed inside you. I could discern
 your perfume distilled from fervent desire.
 Your glow flares and falls; your city must mourn.
  
 Stone Mother, Grey Lady, where shall we turn?                                                                         
 Our hearts are heavy with praise and useless ire.
 Notre-Dame de Paris, how can you burn?
  
 Could your serene blue gaze help us learn                                                                        
 to sing on despite this ruined choir?
 Your glow flares and falls, and all France must mourn.
  
 Our Eternal Lady, you shall return,
 but today we weep as you seem to expire.
 Notre-Dame de Paris, how can you burn?
 Your glow flares and falls, and the world must mourn.
  
  
 Leslie Schultz

Like everyone, I am shocked and devasted by the sight of flames engulfing, yesterday, the gothic church of Notre-Dame de Paris. I was last there ten years ago, with my dear friend and my daughter, and I keep thinking about the contrast between the joy then and the great sadness now.

For me, a cri de coeur requires form to contain it. Perhaps that is why this poem came as a villanelle. Though any response I can make seems wholly inadequate, I offer this poem and these photographs, all taken on March 24, 2009. From the dawn-lit window of our small hotel to Sainte Chapelle, Pont Saint-Michel, the Seine, a small couscous restaurant on the Left Bank,–all were taken in the vicinity of Notre-Dame that happy day.

“Olive Trees” for April 15, 2019

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Olive Trees
  
 Gift, we are told, of Owl-eyed Athena, 
 she of the gaze like sun-polished steel,

 but I think always of soft Italy,
 the countryside greening in early spring.
  
 I recall those powerfully stunted trunks
 rising from earth that still-cool day in March,
  
 trees ringing the walls circling a hill town.
 Monteriggioni—aloof, untaken—
  
 had inspired Dante, served as his blueprint
 for impregnable Hell’s ninth rung. Our car
  
 was banned, but entry was easy for us,
 seeking lunch at a famed restaurant. Doves
  
 roosted in the stone chill of the entrance:
 cooing, dropping feathers, lime, wisps of straw.
  
 Forsythia spiked golden against church stones.
 Cobbles rang. We heard noon bells. Soon, Easter
  
 would arrive. We ate light egg pasta, sipped
 dark red local wine marked authentically
  
 with black rooster-marks of true Chianti.
 The stripped-bare restroom offered elegant
  
 austerity, just a hole in the floor
 with two stone footprints—welcome suggestions
  
 for the slightly befuddled foreign guest—
 paper, and a tiny basin, a latch
  
 on the door. Needs must and not a thing more.
 Refreshed, cleansed, we passed back through the ancient
  
 opening, returned to our winding road. 
 Descending on foot. we paused to glance back:
  
fourteen linked towers against the sky, soft
 white flowers, fresh, resting on glaucous points.
  
 The storied olive’s silver-blue-green leaves
 made fluttering pennants near the car park.
   
 Leslie Schultz 

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
“Nocebo” for April 14, 2019

			
						

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Nocebo
   
 I am the dark flip of the diagnostic coin,
 treatment titrated into trauma.
  
 Inert as chalk, yet I circle in the mind
 summoning dark outcomes,
  
 torquing healing powers 
 against themselves, imagination
  
 metastasizing as fear. No matter
 where you look, “Hey! Over here!”
  
 precise warnings serve as spores
 fruited by a lively brain
  
threading unravelling and pain.
 I do harm. I fall like rain.
   
 Leslie Schultz 















Last night, I wondered idly if today’s title might be “Narwhale” or “Notorious” or “Negotiate.” But….no.





I have long thought that fretting is an abuse of the imagination, so when I catch myself at it, I seek ways to short-circuit that. Recently, I learned that the term “placebo” has an antonym, and this poem sprang from that.





Some of the images here come from two past exhibitions of the American Swedish Institute: “Mansion in Mourning” (October 1-November 1, 2016) and “Quilting Art Today and The Nordic Quilts” (June 18-October 30, 2016)


























					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
“Majesty” for April 13, 2019

			
						

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Majesty
       for my sister, Karla
  
 All winter, this view has comforted me:
 your photograph, on canvas, filled with green,
 palest blue sky, golds, and red glowing leaves,
 supported by lattices of tracery.
  
 You sent it for my bleak, frozen birthday,
 knowing mine falls when our branches are bare,
 knowing how our heavy skies glower grey
 as unpolished silver here. I can stare,
  
 up from understory to sun-fired glow:
 a tree circled by delicate vine, a view
 as heart-lifting as a stained-glass window.
 Today, on your birthday, I offer you
  
 heart-felt lines of thanks for the quiet majesty
 of your soaring spirit, your care, your artistry.
  
 Leslie Schultz 










Regular Winona Media readers know about the keen ability of my sister, Karla Schultz, to find and capture images of the natural world. Her images are dazzling and humbling, and I am grateful for her permission to share them here from time to time.





For the past four years, I have been happy that, since Karla’s birthday falls on April 13, right in the heart of the National Poetry Writing Month marathon, I have had the perfect spur to concoct and share a sororal paean. Though I can’t be with her on her special day this year, I am happy to know that right now she is out with her cameras. 





HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KARLA!!!!





Earlier this morning…





Considering the patterns….





The artist’s signature…

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
“Jump Ropes” for April 10, 2019

			
						

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Jump Ropes

 Where did they go?
 They used to be everywhere
 in good weather,
 those wobbly parabolas.
  
 Little girls, holding
 one end in each hand,
twirled the ropes
 into spinning doorways,
 string lintels,
 stepping over them,
 rhythmically, lightly,
 over and over,
 carried by song.
  
 The beat of the rope
 against the hard ground
 kept time for the breath
 of the skipping girls.
  
 Where did they go?
 Into air?
 Into the ground?
 Into echoes 
 all around?
 Into cadences
 everywhere?
   
 Leslie Schultz