Tag Archives: Leslie Schultz photography

April 26, 2017 Poem: “Shadow Fall”

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Shadow Fall
for Tim

“The Higgs boson is invisible,
but visible as a shadow falling
on the collided particles.”

This idea of a dress
absorbs and reflects
the light of the mind,

exciting particular
clouds of knowing
and unknowing.

Unwearable, fixed, it
conjures the constant instability
of that all-penetrating field

shuttling silently but
musically—warp and weft
strung and unstringing

eternity. Here we
might glimpse particles
of our own excitement

at life, those little
bursts of vertigo
and joy, see how

we, too, just might be
incised into the universe,
part of the blind intaglio
of what we divine.

Leslie Schultz

Earlier this month, I asked Tim to give me a challenge word to work into a poem. His word? “Higgs boson.”

Tim reads far more deeply in science than I do, and has recently been looking at Most Wanted Particle: The Inside Story of the Hunt for the Higgs, the Heart of the Future of Physics by Jon Butterworth (a Christmas gift from Julia.)

I’ve been mulling his challenge for a few weeks. Hmmm….maybe I was stumped?

Today, I thought of the very exciting exhibition mounted two years ago by the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis in honor of 2013 Nobel Medals in all fields, including the one to Peter Higgs for physics. The exhibit combined information on the awards with new creations in music, fashion, and floral design inspired by each. In particular, the memory of how designers Josephine Bergqvist and Klara Modigh interpreted the concept of the Higgs boson gave me a way into making my own interpretation in poetic form.

I went several times, passing, mesmerized, through the galleries and taking the photographs below.

 

Just four more poems to go! Until tomorrow,  LESLIE

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April 25, 2017 “Magi Minus Two”

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Magi Minus Two

Snow falls outside
as he sets to work on his prototype.
First, he threads colored drinking straws
on string, fine-tuning
the count, the order,
getting proportions right.

Then he begins cutting
thin tubing—silvery
aluminum—working
late into the night, choosing
clear fishing line, tough
but fine.

This intent man, a college senior
majoring in math and physics,
is counting down the days until
Christmas, here in married
student housing, and the ten days
beyond, to my birth,

by quietly fashioning
a great stellated dodecahydron,
a form with twenty points arrayed
in three hundred sixty degrees;
a star to hang above
his dining table,

rigid and shining,
but collapsible, something
beautiful that could follow us
wherever he might lead:
its center open, able to hold
all the hope in the world.

Leslie Schultz

My father loved speculative thought, science fiction, and mathematical principles. When I was three, he attempted to  explain a theory of time travel to me by making a paper loop and a paper mobius strip, then having me compare their surface areas and structures. He was also fond of relocating.

Although the poem imagines how it came to be, I recall this homemade star in all our homes (nine total) at least until we moved to Australia when I was twelve years old. I can also recall him talking about how he had made it, as well as packing, unpacking, repairing, and restringing this sculpture. When I called it a “star,” he corrected me with “dodecahedron” explaining that “do” signifining “two,” plus “deca” signifying “ten,” equaled “twelve.” (It still  confuses me to me, as this form had twelve faces has more than twelve points. Perhaps one of you can elucidate?) It was not my first encounter with mathematics but it was, I think, my first encounter with Greek.

I took the image of the light fixture at Como Conservatory in 2004, shortly after my dad’s death in December 2003, and I sometimes make it into a Christmas card.

This image is of me with my dad’s mom, Grandma Phyllis, and, in the background, the original dodecadhedron of my world.

LESLIE

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April 17, 2017 Poem: “So Many Dangers Past”

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So Many Dangers Past

To list them would fill a whole book,
those dangers we no longer fear
in daily life. Where be dragons?
All those poor village idiots
unsettling newly pregnant girls
with the Evil Eye? Fevers brought
on wings fashioned from the night air?

The adders, the Basilisks, and
the grizzlies have vanished almost
completely from our waking thoughts.
The wolf at the door is now just
the open maw of poverty
costumed in kistchy metaphor,
like older kids on Halloween
who delight in startle and fright,
wave cardboard axes bedizened
with scarlet paint, glue, and glitter;
who scowl in their mothers’ lipsticks
until we hand over our caches
of candy or dimes.

These are the times
we inhabit: danger not dead
but gone diffuse, a fog we breath in—
pernicious, radioactive—
lodging not just under our skin
but poisoning joy, our sense of fun.
Generosity murdered. Nowhere to run.

Leslie Schultz

LESLIE

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April 16, 2017 Poem: “Letter to the Moon at Easter”

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Letter to the Moon at Easter

Dear Yellow Pear,

Bitten, swallowed,
discarded, then always
waxing afresh,

Do you know you are
woven like yellow ribbon
into every Easter,
a holiday of renewal
here on Earth?
It’s true.

Your dance
keeps weaving
back and forth over
that slow and stately
ellipse, the Sun’s fiery
progress through our year.

Down here, we wait
in the frozen dark
for his coach of flaming
brandy, of sparking,
rain-soaked prisms,
to speed up.

When at last his circuit
reaches waxing equinox,
exactly balancing day with night,
then we wait next for you,
to wax fullest, shine
your soft, yellowed ivory
glow over our black seas;

Then we further wait until
we all agree with our paper
calendars and blood-soaked
human history, that we
have survived and
can enjoy one more
Sunday.

You wouldn’t understand
completely, but for us
the pink of ham and jelly beans,
the white of lamb fleece
and trumpet-shaped lilies,
and one old story of miracle
all help us trust in
our own renewal.

We want to continue.
We watch this young rabbit,
brown-speckled, hungry,
graze on the sweet green grass,
then see her hop, leap

Into a meadow of blue flowers
and disappear. The pear trees
wave white blooms heavy with scent.
We take heart, try to cast out fear,
in these pastures of

Our northern hemisphere,
and dare to hope we will still be here,
with you,
to be part of it all next year.

Leslie Schultz

HAPPY EASTER!  HAPPY SPRING!  LESLIE

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April 14, 2017 Poems: A Trio of Clerihews for Benjamin Franklin

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A Trio of Clerihews for Benjamin Franklin

Ben Franklin was no fella
to lift a limp umbrella.
On stormy days, it was he
who lofted that kite with electrified key.

Is Franklin the source of every invention?
That would be his own contention;
with lightning rods, smoke-less stoves, bifocals,
and more, he stands benefactor to us, the yokels.

Still, when I think about Benjamin Franklin,
there is something prickly and ranklin.’
Through the lenses of his inventive glasses
he seems to be laughing at us.

Leslie Schultz

Today, I followed the prompt from the NaPoWriMo site to write a little humorous poem called the Clerihew. If you are curious about the form, visit the NaPoWriMo site using the link below. I found I had such a wealth of material in my subject that I ended up writing three!

For anyone who has read the English satirical classic 1066 and All That, or enjoyed an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus or Jeeves and Wooster, you will recognize the strain of humor straight away. Harder than it looks, but fun to attempt! (Full disclosure: I am listening now to a seventeen-cassette audio book version of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. It creeps into every conversation!)

The photos below come from the college visit trip I made with Julia last year to Philadelphia.

LESLIE

“A penny saved…”

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