April 25, 2020 Poem “Yarn”

 



Yarn
 
 
Grandma Marie is a founding member
of the Knit-Wits. They turn out hats, sweaters,
scarves, and socks. They turn up for canapes
and cocktails, a little discreet dishing
of those not there, complete with embroidery
but just around the edges, building up
the local gossip row by row. Here’s the thing:
we learn from each other how to make it new.
 
In storytelling, too, there needs to be
a looping back, complications that only
appear to be tangles. Details are key;
so are color and contrast. Without some
holes, there is nowhere for the attention
to catch hold. But, ladies, let’s remember—
vary that pattern but don’t make it up
out of whole cloth or improbably sticky yarn.
 
 
Leslie Schultz


April 24, 2020 Poem “Xeriscaping”

 


Xeriscaping
            for Mary Lahr Schier
 
 
There can be no escaping from storm
or drought.
 
(Ink flows across the blank page
or stops.)
 
Consider the options with care,
then choose.
 
(Develop long roots that seek
a deep source.)
 
It is a shame to waste these
precious drops,
to fling water like pearls of rain
onto sand.
 
(On the other hand,
flow is everything.)
 
Long roots filter out rank poisons.
Water carries them back into
the making dark.
 
(Rejection or chagrin are perennial,
self-sowing.)
 
Depending upon conditions,
select with care.
 
For sun:
asters and black-eyed Susans,
coneflowers and yarrow,
blazing star and prairie dropseed,
even Blue Heaven little bluestem.
 
(Read! Read! Read!
The blaze of tradition shines forth
and nourishes.)
 
For shade:
columbine and wild ginger,
wild geranium and Solomon’s seal,
pachysandra and dead nettle,
bugleweed and red twig dogwood,
wild hosta and cinnamon fern.
 
(The coaxing practices, the lattices
of form and habit.)
 
Finally, perhaps a rain garden?
Something to catch what spills in?
 
(The index cards handy. The pencils sharpened.)
 
“A garden,” said Stanley Kunitz, “ is a poem
that is never finished.”

He knew a thing.
Or two. 
 

Leslie Schultz


Today’s poem is inspired by a perennially favorite text, The Northern Gardener: From Apples to Zinnias–150 Years of Garden Wisdom by Mary Lahr Schier. Two years ago, that handy and beautifully written compendium introduced me to a new word and inspired a poem, “Cotyledons,” about those first two tiny green leaves thrust up by a sprouting seed. This year, the chapter on “Xeriscaping” inspired a poem.

The quotation that closes the poem is drawn from a book of essays on poetry and gardening by Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006), The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden.

The photographs here of plants were taken on Earth Day, 2020 at the nearby McKnight Prairie Remnant,seven miles from Northfield. This thirty-five acre piece of land is the epitome of xeriscaping with native plants and is cared for by Carleton College. Tim and I were able this year to visit early enough to see, for the first time, the pasque flowers blooming.

April 23, 2020 Poem “Window”

Barn at Red Oaks Farm (Photo: Leslie Schultz)
 


Window
 
 
If eyes are windows
to the soul,
then do panes of glass
allow us to pass
into the spirit of a house,
a ship, an old barn?
 
One cavernous space,
now a wrecked cairn
of splintered wood
once stood
against snow and wind
at the home place
 
where my husband was born.
Though now disappeared,
like a rejected draft, torn,
carted off, I recall its cool
majesty on a hot day;
the scents of long-ago cut hay
 
mingling with motor oil,
alfalfa, and old timber;
the way its echoes would change
the timbre of my voice
to undersea splendor;
and the way the sun poured
 
like transcendent, light rain
from the high window
above the always-open door.
Unprepossessing from outside,
the barn held an ample store
of quiet dignity inside.
 
 
Leslie Schultz


The real-life orientation of this photograph is a quarter-turn to the left. This barn at Red Oaks Farm, where Tim and his siblings grew up, was long, like a semi-circular stand of wooden hoops or like a stand of juniper, low against the wind. Recently, it was the wind that did it in, flattened it like a cardboard box. Somehow, though, it looks right to me this way, and so the print I keep on my desk has this orientation, and it was the inspiration for today’s poem. Here are some other images of that now-disappeared landmark.

Priming the barn at Red Oaks (Photo: Leslie Schultz)
Photo: Marea Mohr (April 2019)

Thinking about windows this week makes me smile because so many people (in Northfield and probably in every city) are placing stuffed toys in their windows to cheer children lonely for their friends. Walks with their parents in the spring sun can turn into a bear hunt or toy safari. I started participating before Easter, and just recently found one a bear large enough for a child to see easily from the street. (It was one that Julia was given by Mary Alice Sipfle at my baby shower, and it was a great nighttime comfort for our daughter, twenty years ago, when the two were the same height.)

Yesterday, because my door was open, I saw a flash of tiny red sundress–like spotting a cardinal for just a moment–and heard a small voice say, “Look, Mama! It’s a BEAR!” A girl, maybe three years old–about as high as an American Girl doll, come to think of it–was walking beside her mother (who pushed the stroller). The mother was wearing a flowered sundress. Both of them looked so peaceful and connected to each other that it made me feel a little bit nostalgic. (I am prone to that these days.) I am glad I happened to overhear that snippet of conversation, because I was thinking that our street seems to be mostly construction workers grinding old asphalt these days, and that maybe the bear looked a bit ludicrous and woebegone.

Today, I think I will open the cupboard under the eaves and see if there isn’t a friend in there who could join the bear in cheery sentry duty.

Happy Shakespeare’s Birthday! LESLIE

Though this year my poem for April 23 is not inspired by William Shakespeare, of course, on his 404th birthday, he is on all of our minds! If you are looking for a short, lighthearted birthday waltz with the Bard, take a look at this video from the Great River Shakespeare Festival called “Shakespeare’s Test Kitchen” or watch along as at 9:20 CST 154 actors participate in a marathon reading of the sonnets. (Thanks to GRSF for the image above!) Here is information about how to participate–though you might have to type in (rather than click on) the links below, as I copied them from an email.

Sonnet Marathon with LinkedInOur very own Doug Scholz-Carlson is taking part in the first ever #LinkedInShakespeare Sonnet Marathon today, on Shakespeare’s birthday! He will be one of 154 actors/readers reading all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets LIVE, to #supportthearts.

At 9:20 CST, Doug is dedicating his reading of Sonnet 149.

You can watch LIVE on LinkedIn at bit.ly/livewithlila or on YouTube at bit.ly/youtubebetter on 4/23, or catch the replay for FOUR DAYS ONLY at either link.

To get a FREE ticket and reminder, or to donate to a bonus fund that will go to one of the 154 organizations represented, go here: bit.ly/LISHAKESTIX

Though theaters are dark, people are still bringing the light! Join us!

And don’t forget, for all of you who enjoy the sonnet form, to consider submitting a sonnet or three to the annual Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest, also sponsored by the Great River Shakespeare Festival. You have plenty of time–the deadline is June 1!

April 22, 2020 Poem “Vantage Point” in Honor of Earth Day’s 50th Anniversary

Earth Day Flag (Designed by Peace Activist John McConnell)
 



Vantage Point
            April 22, 2020—50th Anniversary of Earth Day
                        for Beth
 
 
There is a little climb ahead.
It is worth it. I promise.
 
Yes. These prairie grasses are tall,
already, in April.
It is hard to see the trail today.
But it is there, made by feet before us.
 
Look! A pleated gentian, blue as the sea.
And a pink wild rose, sister
to the apple and strawberry. Here’s the flick
and bob of the prairie warbler, olive gold
with a voice like silver bells. And over there,
past the orb-weaving spider in her web,
can it be a small stand of cacti, sheltering
against a wall of white sand?
 
Yes. I see some char, some broken glass.
I guess that is natural, too.
 
There is a compass plant, something to steer by,
almost as tall as a tree. And there is the lone cedar, shaped
by the wind, reaching, reaching…
 
Sure. Take a moment to catch your breath
under this immense blue. It is true,
there are a few storm clouds on the horizon
infused with the colors of abalone, holding
the rattle of thunder. Let us hope for some streaks
of Promethean fire.
 
Tonight, the new moon
offers new beginnings: Tomorrow
and all the tomorrows ahead.
 
 
Leslie Schultz


I have been thinking a lot this spring about how the first Earth Day, back in 1970, arose from the catalyst of photographic vision–both scientific and poetic–from NASA’s first images of Earth from the vantage point of the Moon. We saw in a flash, it seemed, that this is a single if intricate whole that all of us share. We saw the beauty and the fragility, and that we are in this together–not just humanity but all of the forms life takes. That profound insight help to shape progressive legislation and a shared vision. I believe we are all experiencing something like that now, in this pandemic that knows no borders. My hope is that going forward we will be able to act on this insight so as to enlarge our sense of compassion and belonging, our confidence in the effectiveness of individual and collective actions to make a positive difference.

I think today’s poem might be a pencil sketch for a longer, more complicated poem that looks at the lives and works of John Muir, Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, and Gaylord Nelson. Perhaps others, too. On April 22, 2017, I published this villanelle, “Motif for Ansel Adams”, inspired by his own words. (I included there a link to a six-minute documentary–“Ansel Adams: Photography with Intention”.) I would like to do something similar for these other environmentalists, but I see I will need more than one day to think all that through.

When I was in high school, I received a writing award from the National Council of Teachers of English, and afterwards a signed letter from Senator Gaylord Nelson congratulating me. I wish I had known then of his stellar environmental record and of his own (much more influential) literary accomplishments. Now on my wish list? His last book, published in 2002: Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the Promise. I see there is also a new edition of Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac with an introduction by Barbara Kingsolver. At the urging of our friends, the Clarys, we have already ordered a copy of the documentary, Tomorrow. I hope it comes today.

Meanwhile, I shall just take it one step, one breath, at a time. Perhaps today will be the day for a trip to the McKnight Prairie Remnant near our home. If conditions are right. The vantage point there is unparalleled.

Happy Earth Day! LESLIE

Julia and Tim at the Aldo Leopold Home Site in Sand County, WI (Photo: Karla Schultz)
Compass Point, Winona Street Labyrinth, Winter

April 21, 2020 Poem “Umbrage”

 


Umbrage
 
 
Drat!
 
I thought I had got rid of this, but here
it is in my pocket, a small
sticky ball,

this inert, charred bolus
of fetid emotions, unsightly feeling
of being affronted.
 
Some days, just in case,
I used to take it with me, but tight-zipped.
Snapped. Furled.
 
And then, I really thought I had dropped it,
just let it go. But
it turns out
 
NO!
 
 
Leslie Schultz