Tag Archives: Poem "Dogwoods"

The Orchards Poetry Journal Publishes My Poems “Tiny Troubadour” and “Dogwoods”

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It is always an occasion when The Orchards Poetry Journal publishes a new issue. This issue is something even more special to many of us, since it features the poetry of the late Kim Bridgford. I think it is no exaggeration to say that everyone who knew Kim feels bereft since her death last spring. I certainly do. After meeting her just once, at the AWP Conference in 2015 in Minneapolis, I became inspired by her work as a poet, scholar, and editor, and by her natural, generous, open-hearted way of moving through the world as a full human being. I will be forever grateful for her encouragement of my own work (by accepting a number of poems for her journal, Mezzo Cammin, and for contributing blurbs for my first two collections) and for the inspiration of her own work. (My own particular favorite of her collections is called Hitchcock’s Coffin: Sonnets About Classic Films, but all her work is deft, deep, and indelible.)

This issue of The Orchards contains a beautiful photograph of Kim, a summary of Kim’s many accomplishments and a moving note by her son, Nicki Duvall. Most importantly, it provides a taste of her astonishing work as a poet. I will be reading and rereading all of these for a long time.

This issue also contains a lovely poem, “Saying Goodbye,” from Sally Nacker (whose work is familiar to long-time readers of Winona Media, and who first introduced me to Kim Bridgford), and two of my own poems from the last year or so, “Tiny Troubadour” and “Dogwoods.” I wrote the first, a sonnet, last year after a bachelor wren in our garden during the nesting season of 2019 touched my heart, and I wanted to show it to Kim but that was not to be, so it is dedicated to her. (This wren returned to our garden this past summer of 2020, attracted a mate, and raised two broods.) “Dogwoods” is for my friend, Judy, inspired by her and her love of the natural world–garden, prairie, and woods.

You can read this issue online HERE, and order your own paper copy HERE.

Happy reading! Wishing you a peaceful and artistic winter season!

LESLIE

April 4, 2020 Poem “Dogwoods”

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Dogwoods
      for Judy
  
  
 They are no dream. They are a dream come true.
 These twigs, so red against the April snow,
 nestle with pussy willows soft and grey.
 These two embody harmony on a day
 enflamed by public fear and private woe.
 Their gentle forms uplift and bring to view
  
 the memory of a friend who came to dine
 just last month, who knocked when twilight fell,
 who carried in these wands of wood and willow
 cradled in her arm, tied up in yellow
 paper, newsprint, yellow ribbon. I could tell
 they came from her garden, at a time when mine
  
 was frozen, mud-brown, glyph of brittle grief.
 I exclaimed, then set them in a square vase,
 four-sided, like the creamy bracts that frame
 each cluster of tiny golden blooms, too tame,
 I think, to call a flower. In any case,
 that night, the slender red was not in leaf
  
 but formed a backdrop for the silver show
 of fuzzy nubbins shaped like kitten paws.
 Today—Ta-da!—a dazzle of bright green
 crowns every dogwood twig like a young queen—
 Persephone, perhaps, who scorns applause,
 yet yearly melts my heart, as well as snow.
  
  
 Leslie Schultz

Today’s poem sprang from a recent gift, as you see. My friend, Judy, also keeps sled dogs, which had not occurred to me until just now, making the gift of dogwood all the more appropriate. Looking at these images, I am glad that the vase was made by a local artist, the late Charles Halling. I plan to plant these magic wands–pussy willow and dogwood–in my own garden when the time is right, after last night’s snow is no longer even a memory.