Tag Archives: Leslie Schultz photography
Happy Christmas and “Winter Walk” (Poem)
In Northfield, the inauguration of the Christmas season is made official by the annual downtown Chamber-of-Commerce-sponsored event called “Winter Walk”. Every year, it seems, it is better attended. This year, I was able to get a few photographs of the last minute preparations along Division Street and in Bridge Square, before the sun went down and I needed to drive Julia to a Mexican Folklorico performance across the icy Cannon River. On a grey afternoon, I was especially attracted to the lighted star and word sculptures in the windows of The Rare Pair/Clothes for Keeps.
Christmas Tree on Bridge Square (2013)
Just before dusk, dozens of volunteers and merchants were transforming the streets, sidewalks, and shops into an inviting place to stroll, sip warm drinks, window shop, and enjoy a communal and light-hearted response to the dark, icy days ahead. The symbol of this transformation is the luminaria.,Winter Walk’s hallmark: humble brown bags, weighted with a little coarse sand, protecting dozens of tiny votive flames from the chill December gusts. As the dark deepens, these stout-hearted and sturdy lights create a welcome and inviting festival of light.
Maddi Miller, a member of the National Honor Society & Northfield High School Class of 2014, volunteers to light luminaria candles set up along Division Street
It is always fun to see the extra sparkle from the shop windows spill out onto the sidewalks and into Division Street.
This year, there was extra sparkle with the with the art of fire and ice brought by Brett Norgaard with frozen luminaria and sculptures.
April Ripka, owner of The Sketchy Artist, Brett Norgaard (ice candle maestro), and Karin Norgaard at Winter Walk 2013
Winter Walk
Even for bees, winter comes far too soon.
No matter the weight of golden honey
stored, essence of a hundred afternoons,
a million flowers. For us, it’s money.
There is never quite enough, though we keep
making it, saving it, or trying to,
as we watch it drain through need, seep
through pockets faster than it can accrue.
Worried about the utility bill,
mortgage, insurance, we walk to bright displays,
all glitter at the bottom of the hill.
Compelled by the season to spend, we’re dazed
by strings of blinking lights, by crunching snow,
the heat and weight of our scratchy wool coats.
At the square, there are people we know
cheerily shaking hands as though seeking votes,
as though it were possible to elect
a “Merry Christmas” for the whole icy town.
We pause, and smile, and say what is correct.
To our surprise, we have less urge to frown.
A group of carolers draws near: a flock
of turkey-red-faced, singing children. Merchants
fling open doors, forget their gilded stock,
come out to see how spirit switches on.
Glad tidings are infectious.We finally don
gaily appareled hearts, admit this time enchants,
and smell the pines, and marvel at the stars,
rejoicing, holding dear all that is ours.
Leslie Schultz
Swag Gallery Mascot
As we move into that timeless span of days, what I always call “the week between the years”, I hope we can each reflect on what went right last year and the new opportunities that are waiting just around the corner.
Wishing you a “Happy Christmas” and a light heart now and always!
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Spooky Fun: Images of Halloween & a Cauldron of Poems: “Beware”, “Doppelganger”, and “Driving to Appleton”
Halloween is a great time for harvesting pumpkins and reflections, taking stock, and just getting silly. Hope you like the grab-bag below of images, insights, and poems below! (For images of a special dog and a special cat, scroll all the way down!)
In the photo above, what’s scarier? The silhouette of the witch on her broom, posted on the blinds, or the images flickering on the television inside? Your guess is a good as mine but I’m going for the televised images.
When I was in second grade, my best friend and I used to race home from school to see the latest episode of the (now cult classic) television show, Dark Shadows. For those who don’t know or remember, the opening credits are layered over waves crashing at the base of a cliff on the Maine coast, atop which sits a spooky house. The voice-over (a ghost? a warning?) says eerily, haltingly, “My name … is Victoria Winters…” We’d hear that and be off to be deliciously spooked for half an hour. Who knew what would turn up? Vampires? Witches or warlocks? Werewolves? Ghosts? It was all fog and suggestion, a jumble of plot lines we’d try to untangle. Anything might pop out of the closet or the crypt. (A side note: last year, curious to find out what I would think of them now, I rented a few of the early episodes from Netflix. They were hilarious! And my daughter says that the disco dancing–in which actors keep both feet planted in place–is truly scary.)
Back then, my taste for narrative leaned toward the gothic more than it does now, though I still enjoy the atmosphere in a poem like “Maude” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, or “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allen Poe. Back then, I read Ripley’s Believe it or Not as well as Little House in the Big Woods, but when it came to Halloween costumes, I always wanted to be a beautiful gypsy or a fashionable witch, never anything scary or gory. I didn’t think then about how fashion itself can be scary. (High heels? Belly piercings? You see my point.) Then, in college, my first roommate arrived with a subscription to Vogue magazine. During the fall of freshman year, I wrote this poem:
Beware
Vampires are in vogue
this season. See them draped in fur,
gaunt, lurking
in the birches, mad-eyed, or
haunting
smoky restaurants, hungering
for that gleaming
suck of fame.
Later still, encountering the idea in literature of the “doppleganger” or double, I thought about how much of what can truly scare us is what we sometimes see in the mirror: our own worst self looking back at us through our thoughts and actions. There’s always that gap between how we want to be (and be perceived) and what we manage to achieve. Now, that’s scary stuff, kids!
DOPPELGANGER
He is here again, the bad twin,
the other, the feared-but-known.
Where are his eyes? His nose is gone.
All that remains is the grin.
I think he is trying to get in.
The birds have fallen silent.
And then I know. And groan.
He rises from my very bone.
Nonetheless we disavow the doppelganger. We do our best to close that gap between actual and ideal, try not to sag in our intentions to be our best visions of ourselves, to smile, to play (even) through the pain of disillusionment that is just part of the human experience. And it’s funny for me to realize that Halloween, with its traditional juxtaposition of tricks and treats, masks and monsters, ghouls and glitter means more to me each year. Below, a final salute to Halloween in one more poem and several more photographs.
DRIVING TO APPLETON
Pumpkins sleep close to houses.
Evening light covers them with gold.
These farmhouse windows are lit but cold.
Grey barns settle on their stones.
Everywhere sheaves lean
Toward their centers.
Great rolls of hay seem to lumber.
Winter is coming, but now
The culverts are purple with thistles,
The cattle are plump,
And there, in the hollow,
A rusted harrow rests.
The woods beyond
Are full of gossips.
When the moon washes over
The tops of birches,
They’ll ride to the cut fields
To glean
And mend their brooms.
Leslie Schultz
Above, rowan berries: traditional specific against witches–unknown whether it has any effect on gossips.
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In Praise of Glorious Autumn Leaves & “Housecat” (Poem for Alpine)
Every year, I am dazzled by the colors of the leaves as they turn and fall. Above are pink and green leaves in the Garden of Quiet Listening, a Japanese garden on the Carleton College campus, just a few blocks from my house. Every year, I want to hang onto these colors, to bring them inside, to keep them in some way past their expiration date. Here are a few attempts:
Many years ago, when it was brought home to me that all mammals don’t perceive color in the same way that humans tend to, I tried to imagine the world from the point of view of my cat, Alpine. Below is her baby picture, taken the first day I met her.
Some of you might remember Alpine. She used to spend lots of time on window ledges (and couches, too).
Alpine Undignified
Alpine has also inspired lines in several poems over the years, including the whole of this poem.
HOUSECAT
Alpine’s down is filling in
Between her summer fur and skin.
Crouched low on a window ledge,
She watches leaves desert the hedge.
She cannot see their orange and red;
Does Alpine mourn the autumn dead?
Not she; she yawns at the setting sun,
As much to say an evening’s done
As to convey an unconcern —
For whether seasons stay or turn.
Leslie Schultz (1982)
Alpine with Patience and Fortitude (New York Library Lions)
Here is Alpine the literary cat, overlooking Gulliver’s Travels, Vanity Fair, and (maybe?) Jane Eyre, colorful volumes held upright by scaled down copies of the famous New York Library Lions, Patience and Fortitude. Regarding color vision, it seems that the jury is still out on which colors cats can see. (If you are curious, here is an interesting link to an NBC News story.) All I know for certain is that I wouldn’t exchange my human color perception for anything, not even feline grace.
Have you seen any polka-dotted leaves this year?
Thank you for reading this! If you think of someone else who might enjoy it, please forward it to them. And, if you are not already a subscriber, I invite you to subscribe to the Wednesday posts I am sending out each week–it’s easy, free, and I won’t share your address!
