Tag Archives: Leslie Schultz Poetry

April 29, 2017 Poem: “Narrow Steps”

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Narrow Steps

Lately, I fear being pulled under.
And, so, ladders appear everywhere:
across the street, next door, near
my porch. Even here,

inside a monumental marble-walled
museum, a microcosm
of skill and beauty culled from
the whole blue marbled globe

we inhabit. And so, I am
asking for the courage to see
how to rise above, to find one step
up, one step back into hope.

Leslie Schultz

This is the penultimate day of NaPoWriMo– hope to see you tomorrow for the final poem in this year’s series.

LESLIE

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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

Check out other participants at the NaPoWriMo Challenge 2017 home site!

April 23, 2017 Poem: “Weather”

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Weather

Each day, the dawn reconstitutes our world.
Navy blue shades into lilac and gold,
reversing evening lights, and we are hurled
out of dreams, into stories yet untold.

What weather ticks against the window pane
or streams in as urgently as birdsong?
What internal turbulence might remain
from a conversation yesterday, strong

enough to shape, in answer, an insight,
or push us toward a bedrock truth at last?
Often stumbling, night-blind, we move toward light
each day we live, however overcast.

Dawn brings a form of storm as yet unwrit,
blowing in to see what we’ll make of it.

Leslie Schultz

Today’s poem is an attempt at a Shakespearean sonnet.
HAPPY SHAKESPEARE’S BIRTHDAY!

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April 20, 2017 Poem “Ali Baba: A Vinyl Memory”

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Ali Baba: A Vinyl Memory
for Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

I can still see that disk of ebony
incised with a spiral journey
ridden by one tiny diamond’s point
from its rim right to its very heart.

It was an old vinyl LP,
pressed when I was two or three,
and a perennial favorite.
Its highly-colored cardboard sleeve

showed Ali Baba, spying, in a tree
overhearing a magic password,
“Open Sesame,”
that caused the mountain-side to split

open so Ali Baba could steal
inside, after the thunderous thieves.
Most of all, I recall
how this deep cave was lit

by the light of jewels
hanging from trees,
a vision summoned
by a lone violin—

Scheherazade—unearthly beauty
pouring into a child’s ears
and glowing there, still,
after all these years.

Leslie Schultz

When I was very young, my mother would often play albums with stories on them in the afternoon. I still often think about four, in particular, wishing I could hear them again. Three of them were from this series: Tale Spinners for Children. A few days ago, I began thinking so strongly of the music from this one. The first four lines of this poem came. I waited until today for the rest of the poem to come clear and to share it here.

Image result for Tale Spinners Ali Baba

To hear an audio clip of the violin solo, just scroll down to the second one.

Which oft-heard (told, read, recorded) stories most impressed themselves upon you? I would love to hear if you’d care to share. (The other favorites in the recorded realm for me were “Beauty and the Beast” & “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp” in the Tale Spinners series, and a collection of folktales told by Beryl Berney called “All Join Hands Around the World.” I still think very often of the Japanese story she told of how there is a rabbit in the moon.)

Until tomorrow!  LESLIE

Check out other participants at the NaPoWriMo Challenge 2017 home site!