Tag Archives: NaPoWriMo Challenge 2017

April 18, 2017 Poem: “City Rain” (After “Spring Showers” by Alfred Stieglitz, Circa 1900)

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City Rain
after “Spring Showers,” circa 1900, by Alfred Stieglitz

These delicate mists
soften almost everything—
stones, concretes, bricks.

The old woman
in a black hat
bends
toward pavement;
the pavement shines
like the surface
of a lake, a lake ringed
by buildings
shimmering like hills.

Everything
seems to dissolve~
except this singular
sapling,
its slender trunk
rocketing
out from
a circle
of black iron,
firing
dark clouds,
explosions
of new buds,
fresh-inked on
this silver sky.

Leslie Schultz

It is raining here today, and I thought I would try a double imitation. Here is a poem inspired by a lovely New York image from more than a hundred years ago with, I think, the distinctive look of a Japanese brush painting. To see a digital image of one print of this evocative photographic capture by Alfred Stieglitz in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, click HERE.

Meanwhile, my more prosaic–and sun-drenched–black and white image, taken a couple of blocks from my house, is below.

Hoping your day holds joy in all weathers-–Leslie

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

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

 

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 15, 2017 Poem: “Easter Blooms”; Photography by Julia Denne

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Easter Blooms
for Julia Denne

When the earth warms
and is riven by rain,
pasque flowers rise,
again, through the straw
of last year, aglow
with the palest hues,
their soft haloes
pulsing with winds.

Nearby, the porcelain-
white, egg-white petals
of bloodroot lift off
from deep-dyed
rhizomes and red
fibrous nests, their green
and lobed leaves still furled,
like praying hands.

Today, they carpet
the still-leafless woodlands
like tiny fallen stars,
in magnitudes
that rocket the mind
toward infinity,
natural benignity,
perhaps even mercy.

Leslie Schultz

My thanks go to Julia Denne, whose beautiful photographs (used here by permission) inspired today’s poem!

The delicacy and brevity of these woodland flowers that emerge even before our northern trees leaf out signals spring to me, even more than the lengthening days or the sight of returning migratory birds. This year in Northfield, the profusion is greater than I can ever remember, and this week, dodging between rain drops, I have been out trying to capture a few images myself, which I might perhaps share in the days to come. For now, I am grateful to see these even earlier blooms from a few hundred miles south. Thank you, Julia!

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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