Happy first day of Spring! Many years it still feels like winter, but today it was SPRING! If I didn’t have to jump over a lumps of snow I wouldn’t have remembered it snowed almost a foot less than a week ago. Wonderful weather for a run — sun and not too much wind. I wore shorts, a short sleeved shirt and a lightweight pullover which I took off right before I turned around. For half the run, bare arms and bare legs!
a regular:Daddy Long Legs! As I ran back south, he greeted me, Hello again! Does he remember me from past years, or did he think he’d already seen me once today? (he’s done that before.) I’m choosing the believe he remembers me. I wonder if he has a name for me, like I do for him?
The ice on the surface of the river has melted. Down in the flats I was able to get close — only feet away — from the surface: some foam floating on the water moving slowly south.
holes
As I told RJP, I’ve hit the point in the process of these poems where I’m beginning to doubt myself and what I’m doing. Part of it, I explained to her, is because I dwell in the almost and struggle to find how to execute the final bit and/or give it the “polish” it needs. I’m not giving up. Instead, I’m trying a different approach: cut-outs. Would ths work better if the words were cut-out — a way to isolate them — instead of encased in holes? Can I do both? What if I had some of the words encased in the holes and some cut-out? Would that make it a little less complicated and less messy + easier to execute?
The question to return to again and again: what will serve the message/meaning/intentions of the poem?
4.3 miles minnehaha falls and back 44 degrees 10% puddles
Spring! Sun! Sharp shadows! Clear paths with far less puddles! I felt strong and satisifed and at ease in my body. Well, mostly at ease. Because it’s messy out by the gorge, I wore an old pair of shoes — the ones that don’t quite work. Sometimes my gait felt awkward, my feet not hitting the ground in the right spot or in the right way.
Marveled at the river’s surface as I ran above it. So beautiful with its frozen surface. In the past, I’ve described the surface as vast or barren or eerie, surreal or otherworldly, but today other words came to mind: still, frozen, fixed, unmoving, deadened, paused, suspended. Yes! I think these words better describe its strange beauty for me. Looking at it is like looking at a film still. Looking at it feels like everything is paused, suspended in time.
10 Things
gushing falls — I could hear their loud descent and see their white foam
looking down at the oak savanna, tall, slender, bare branches mixed with their shadows to make a mess of lines on the snow — how much of it was actual trees, how much shadow? I couldn’t tell
water dripping fast and strong over the limestone edges in the ravine at 42nd street
empty benches
a guy walking with a small dog and looking at his phone
someone biking near the falls playing some mellow music out of speakers
taking off my sweatshirt, running with bare arms, seeing a walker with bare arms too
sirens in the distance, a loud, sustained whistle
the walking trails are still covered in snow
the gutter that was gushing water yesterday now only has trickles
Off and on throughout the run, I recited Alice Oswald’s “The Story of Falling,” sometimes reciting it in my head, sometimes out loud.
Holes
I’ve mapped some more of Holes 4 and . . . it’s a lot. Will this just look like an ugly, jumbled mess? Yesterday, talking through this with Scott, he said something like, do what serves the poem and the meaning you are trying to convey (or the effect you are trying to achieve). In terms of meaning, the words of the first section of the poem are about what I see instead of a gaping hole: shimmering, fizzy, ephemeral or elusive (hard to see, fleeting) things: snow flake marble dust, seltzer fizz, a nothing that is something not sharing its secrets. Perhaps these ephemeral things have come loose from what bound them to “normal” sight and its monitoring through tests like the amsler grid; it’s where you dwell when normal sight is not longer possible. So maybe the unraveling occurs prior to this hole? Yes, the unraveling (and vision of amsler grid as broken strings happens in 2 and 3, Does that mean that Holes 4 is all disconnected free-floating words/phrases? If so, how to make it possible for others to read it? I could place the poem near the center, around the gaping hole. I could also number the pages/sections and mark each word with a page number? Yes, I like this!
And hours later, I’m thinking more of using a distorted Amsler Grid at the center of Holes 4, and the black hole that the grid is collapsing into is the shape of blind spot.
Another mini project: can I learn how to draw decent-enough eyeballs — pupil and iris only?
amsler ideavery rough eyepoem text
Get Out ICE
This flyer about the next No Kings march came up on Facebook from Minnesota’s Lt. Gov Peggy Flanagan (and hopefully our next governor?!):
“In Minnesota, we’ve seen the federal government at its worst — and showed the world how to fight back.
Now, I’m honored that the flagship No Kings protest will be held here in the Twin Cities. Together, we’ll show Donald Trump that we don’t do kings.”
NO KINGS TWIN CITIES VOL. 3. Joan Baex Jane Fonda Maggie Rogers. March 28, 12 pm. March then rally at the State Capital.
4.3 miles minnehaha park and back 43 degrees 25% puddles
Yesterday it was very cold. Today it is warmer, the sun is out, and everything is melting! Drip drip drips everywhere, very LOUD whooshing car wheels, puddles. At the start of the run, I wondered how long it would take before at least one of my socks would get soaked. Not long! I only made it a quarter of a mile before stepping in a big puddle. Oh well, it dried out pretty fast.
overheard: one runner to another as they encountered each other on puddly double bridge — take it easy my brother
Kids laughing and yelling on the playground; a pack of runners; the falls, gushing, a few sirens; the river with a thin sheet of gray ice looking wide and barren. Can you see it through the trees?
river view from the 38th street steps / 18 march
On my walk back home, I stopped to take some video of water dripping out of gutter. Unfortunately because of the bright light I accidentally hit slow mo so you can’t hear the wonderful dripping sound. Here’s a brief clip of it anyway:
water dripping in accidental slow mo
HOLES
Yesterday afternoon, after finishing mapping all of my word (drawing boxes around them, encasing them in circles or the shape of my blind spot) and feeling like something was missing, I had an idea: I should place the Amsler grid somewhere on the pages. I didn’t want to simply cut out a printed version of the grid and completely cover the words. What about drawing the grid on top of the words? Too difficult with my terrible vision! Then, a new idea: cut out a hole the size/form of Amsler grid’s shape (4 x 4 in) and use string as the lines for the grid. After some playing around with it, another idea: not string, but thread or wire, and make the grid broken, distorted, emerging from the hole, looking somewhat like broken guitar strings. Three of the strings will extend out across the pages, offering the path of the three sentences of the poem. A variation: create three grids, with each one corresponding to a different sentence. This idea, which I hope I can execute because I really like it, led me to think about adding an Amsler grid to all of the holes. On Holes 1 it would be the “normal” grid with my blind spot on it. I have to think more about how it would look in Holes 2 and 3. By Holes 4, it’s broken.
If you google “distorted Amsler grid” you can find some great images of warped lines and black holes caving in upon themselves. Due to risk of copyright infringement, I won’t post any, but here’s a link to one that I particularly like:
Amsler grid distorted image: the image is at the bottom of the page. It is of the grid with the outer lines appearing normal. Near the center the lines are wavy, collapsing into a big black spot in the very middle.
Some things to think about today (I’m writing this paragraph just before 10 am):
how do I map the words in Holes 1, 2, and 3?
where do I place the Amsler grids in Holes 2 and 3, and what will that look like?
will there only be 4 Holes, or should there be more? If more, should I place them before or after Holes 4 in terms of the progression of the grid’s distortion?
Another thing that happened yesterday: I remembered that I had a large amount of oil pastels, leftovers from RJP’s obsession with them more than 10 years ago. Could I use them to color/fill in my holes? How do you use oil pastels?1
It is now 5:20 pm and I’ve spent part of the day trying something new with Holes 4. I’m using uncooked spaghetti to connect/map the words of the poem. It’s a complicated challenge, but the spaghetti is helping to visualize it more effectively.
more thoughts/questions:
should I split this poem into 4 instead of 3 segments?
should there be separate amsler grids for each section, or one grid from which different colored threads emerge and travel to the three or four different sections? if there is only one grid, should it be in the very center of the piece?
should the grid be just an open hole, with no evidence of a grid, just black netting and threads or wires or yarn emerging from the hole (I like wire, but is it too difficult to work with?) OR should part of the grid still remain — some white, some “normal” lines, then a hole?
a further thought with that last question: what if the holes (1, 2,3, and 4) documented the unraveling of the amsler grid, with it intact in Holes 1, then less intact in Holes 2 and 3, until it is gone and with broken wires in Holes 4? I love this idea; can I figure out a way to execute it?
returning to the thread/wire — will it work to have it stitched into the paper, where sometimes it is on the front, sometimes emerging from the back side through another hole? is this too messy and complicated? do I need to cut back on the poem, to reduce its number of words?2
I don’t want to cut any words, but it would make this easier — do I want it to be easier? Not really! ↩︎
Get Out ICE: It’s never too late to do the right thing. . . .
is something people were chanting and singing at hotels where ICE agents were staying this winter. I think it also fits as a way to describe this:
A reporter for NBC interviewed people at a gas station in a previously very pro-Trump county in Pennsylvania. Three people still support Trump, one does not. Responding to the reporter’s question, “If you could say something to President Trump and he could hear you right now, what would it be?”
“3 times! That was my bad, apparently I’m an idiot”
2.3 river road, south / lena smith boulevard, north 15 degrees / feels like 0 50% snow-covered
Many of the sidewalks were completely bare and dry, almost all of the trail was covered in slick snow. In some stretches, the trail was covered with chunks of snow from the snow plows that had just passed by. Running south, with the sun and the wind at my back, and on the short strips of bare pavement, it felt good. Then I ran through a puddle. I didn’t notice that my foot was soaked for several minutes, but when I did I decided I should head home; it was cold enough that I was (mildly) concerned for my wet toes. Good call, past Sara! When I got home, one of my toes was burning.
10 Things
bright BLUE sky
the sounds of shoveling and scraping and snow-blowing all around
at the end of each block, I encountered an almost knee-high wall of snow where the plow had come through
the surface of the river looked eerie and strange, pale and spotted with chunks of ice
no kids’ voices from the school playground: for preK – 5th graders, school was closed, for 6th – 12th graders e-learning — that would suck! give the big kids a snow day too, I say!
the rumble of two plows approaching, first a small one, then BIG one — I moved to the far side to avoid the spray of snow
I encountered a few other runners but no skiers or bikers
head north, I ran into a wall of wind — ugh! howling and biting
I bet it was pretty and looked very winter wonderland-y — I couldn’t tell you because I was too busy trying not to slip!
if it hadn’t been for the terrible wind, my wet toes, and the slick and uneven path, it would have been a great run — even with the bad conditions, I had some wonderful moments outside
mind-body connection
On last week’s episode of the podcast Nobody Asked Us, Kara Goucher talked about how she started taking a low dose of some (unnamed) anti-anxiety medication and it’s helping with her dystonia (“a movement disorder that causes the muscles to contract. This can cause twisting motions or other movements that happen repeatedly and that aren’t under the person’s control” — Mayo Clinic). She has discussed many times on the podcast how dystonia has made it very difficult for her to run, especially on pavement.
mind body connection — watch until 15:58
This mind-body connection is fascinating to me. Does her anti-anxiety med just make her more relaxed, or does it do something more to the brain — and maybe the neural mapping of her movements?
HOLES 4
Today I’m mapping my words on a copy of the “Still Life” article. I”m trying something different. In Holes 1, 2, and 3, I taped the paper together first and then found the words and drew the holes over and around the words. Today, with such a long article, I’m finding the words and drawing holes around them first, before I tape the pieces together. Will that make a difference? Not sure, but I might switch around the order of the pages to shape how the holes look together.
I drew and colored in holes on 3 out of the 8 pages, and tried adding some color to a few. I’m wondering if some of the holes should messier, with less defined borders or jagged, rough. I have limited ability in drawing; can I push myself some more? Here’s an image of one of the pages:
Bring Me the News is saying we got 8.5 inches, but that reading was from 10:30 this morning, and it has continued to snow all day, so I’m not sure how much is on the ground. I’m guessing a foot. It felt like a foot as I tried to shovel it. So heavy! I joked with a neighbor that it’s heart attack snow, which is funny until it’s not.
I wonder if it the paths will be clear enough to run above the river tomorrow? Future Sara, let us know!
holes 4
This one, which takes words from “Still Life” is my biggest one yet: 6 pages! Here’s a draft of the poem (the || represent when the words are taken from different places in the article)
you look at sky, || you look at || words || and || don’t || see || the || gaping hole || and || its || graveyard || for || failed || cone || cell || s || you see || snow flake marble dust || seltzer || fizz|| a || nothing|| that || is || something || not || shar|| ing|| its || secrets
you || can’t || exhume || the || bodies|| but || you can || make || room || for || life || in this place || where || the dead || are || interred
crack || open a grave|| with || a || new || way || of || seeing
One last run on clear paths before it snows tonight. The forecast predicts more than a foot of snow tonight. It will probably melt fast, which will be as much as more of a nightmare than the actual snow. Walls of snow, then mush, then jagged ice, then little lakes and puddles. Oh well, I bet it will be pretty and I might get to see someone skiing down the street!
Today’s run was good. My left knee was a bit stiff and grumbly, but otherwise I felt good. In the last mile I started to feel relaxed, with my legs and arms and the space around me in sync. I was moving through the air, hardly noticing when my feet touched down — the space between beats! I love when I run like this!
10 Things
honk honk honk honking geese all around the gorge, 1: down the hill, under the ford bridge, a lone geese floating in the middle of the river
geese, 2: I heard their honks first, behind me, then beside me, then in front of me — finally saw them: 2 geese flying low
overheard: one runner to another: it didn’t even taste like salmon!
the bells of st. thomas
someone in an bright orange jacket down below, on the stretch of the winchell trail that I call the edge of the world
the river surface below the ford bridge was dotted with bright white slabs of ice — a strange sight; I wish I would have brought my phone today to take a picture!
an empty parking lot at the locks and dam
empty benches
traces of snow in the grass
a laughing pileated woodpecker
HOLES
Flipping through my past New Yorkers, I found an article from the 9 june 2025 issue that looks promising. It’s called “Still Life” in the print issue and “Greenwood Cemetery’s Living Dead” in the online version. The only test for whether I can use it or not: it must have at least one use of the word hole, or of a word that contains hole. This is a long article, so I’d hope there’s at least one hole, but is there? Yes, 4!
Medina extended a tape measure into the hole and said, “Six-ten.”
Usmanov and I stared down into the gaping hole, its walls marbled with grass roots.
went to Green-Wood almost every day for weeks this spring, and the most unnerving thing I saw was an enormous hunched figure, wearing a cloak, with a gaping hole for a face.
Scientists were only starting to piece together that contaminated water, not flawed character, caused cholera; that smallpox probably originated in rodents;
I’m surprised that an article about a cemetery only has 4 mentions of holes. Isn’t a cemetery more than half holes?!
some notes as I read through the article:
One, I am reading it backwards, section by section. Two, one rule in the cemetery: no skylarking. I looked it up, skylarking is frolicking and playing jokes on others. It’s also the name of one of my favorite XTC albums. Three, reading the text, which I’ve put in a pages document, I’m noticing a few things about the text: the text surrounding the word or phrase that I can see sometimes looks like it is scribbled out. Sometimes it looks like it has sparkles around it that are moving — not quite flashing. The text always seems to be vibrating. How can I translate that into a texture on my blind spot Four, as I read through the sections, I jotted down words or phrases that stood out to me:
entrance flaming torch welcoming appears mirror ink you’re never alone you’re never disconnected love full of little secrets inhabit center recreate experience remaining time offer everyone gently between seeing moment you look at space, you look at background, you look at sky hope visit already thinking I don’t know why there was room about to open up turn and follow her gaze staring hands waste bigger picture across threshold neglect and care art cone cell
heart needed landscape fizz snow flake marble dust seltzer balance fills up keeps the grass space enough out of the water upkeep grounds public spaces essentail failed possible efficiency requires can stand on a sidewalk people who never look up out of room true mapping crevice easy circular elipses inside walls outside dark happen here nothing pale-blue cluttered wasn’t a place searched
certainunmarked is now used other-siders skylarking exhume make when you see in place of a road the word down through the plywood a plank settling glacial till earth inches from a layer of turf dirt unstratified jumble of sands, cobbles, and clays caves in on itself all-weather like a bird bench what do you want stone slabs a door uncut grave terrain geologically life this is a place to inter the dead no good place to put all the boies walked around faces believing piece together rotting disease inspired crowded
By the way, as I write, the snow has started. We officially have a blizzard warning that begins around 10 pm and lasts until Monday morning.
One of the reasons I picked this article is because I wanted more land language, like grass and dirt and dust and terrain and stone slabs and sands, cobblestones, clays, caves and glacial till. I want to connect the hole in my vision with the gorge — as a landscape, and a very big hole. I think of it as a powerful metaphor for my vision loss and what comes during and after. Of course, the gorge is also the actual place I go to for my writing practice.
The word plank stood out to me because of ED’s “I felt a funeral in my Brain” — and then a plank in reason broke/and I dropped down and down — I think of ED also with the stone slabs and the dark.
And, I like crevice and opened up, inside, outside, this is a place to inter the dead, room — a gaping hole, a threshold between,
I also like fizz and snow flake marble dust, which is what the words (and what I) sometimes feel like — fly, like a bird, sky — the words, cluttered, crowded and between walls
my eyes: a graveyard for dead cone cells
you look at space you look at sky you look at words and don’t see the gaping hole and its graveyard for dead cone cells you see snow flake marble dust seltzer fizz a nothing that is something
I’d like to keep going, but it’s time to get ready for Scott’s birthday dinner!
Wasn’t planning to run this late afternoon, but snow is coming and Scott was going out for a run and I got my new pair of shoes, so I decided to go for it (or get after it as Carrie Tollefson would say). Scott and I didn’t run together, just at the same time (5:45 pm) and in the same place (near the gorge). What a great run! Was it the sun and the crisp, early spring cold? The healthy food I ate for breakfast and lunch? The new shoes? I’m not sure, but I felt strong and fast and free. On my way back, I encountered a HUGE group of runners running north, all much faster than me. At some point, I heard someone call out, good job Mill City Runners! Of course, Mill City. That’s one of the biggest running groups in the twin cities. Wow, I knew they were big, but I had no idea they were that big!
I liked running in the early evening. Other than the huge group of runners, there weren’t that many people out on the trails. I noticed the light was lower, but it was too early to see any evidence of a sun about to set. The favorite thing I noticed: wild turkeys! Half a dozen grazing in the grass just north of turkey hollow, another one of them grazing in the grass between the trail and the road.
I stopped briefly at Rachel Dow Memorial Bench and took a picture of the blue water and the thin branches softening my view:
blue / 13 march
Friday the 13th! Tonight Scott and I will do our annual tradition of watching Friday the 13th. It’s not as good as Halloween, but it has its moments.
update, 14 saturday 2026: We watched it and Scott figured noticed something neither of us had in our previous viewings of the movie (5 or 6 or more?): each of the deaths is foreshadowed by something that happened earlier in the movie: the character who is murdered on the archery field is almost hit with an arrow a few hours earlier; another character recounts a dream she had where the rain turns into a river of blood which she calls her shower dream, only a few scenes before an axe splits her skull in a shower stall; Alice (the final girl) is surprised by the town weirdo or town prophet, depending on your perspective, when she opens the door to the pantry and he emerges, calling out, you’re doomed. you’re all DOOMED!, and then hides in that same pantry later that nightonly to be found by the killer
Crazy Ralph warning the kids
Later, Scott also realized that there were connections with the murder weapon. For example: the arrow through Jack’s throat ends up at the archery range where Brenda is killed; the axe that splits Marcy’s skull is later found, bloodied, of course, by Alice in Brenda’s bed
a few memorable lines: Jack (Kevin Bacon), about a coming storm: the wind just shifted a good 180 degrees and it’s going to tear down the valley like a son of a gun Brenda (can’t remember the actor’s name, but Scott looked her up and she died at the age of 49 in 2007 from pancreatic cancer — my mom died at 67 from pancreatic cancer in 2009), reacting to Bill fixing the generator: what hath God wrought
HOLES
Reworking Holes 3 to allow for better spacing of the holes. Here’s the new version of the poem:
read sentences sliced in half with strangeness each one glitch ing just enough to scramble the senses OR scramble the meaning
fall through the hole your reading eyes find and land in a logic of blur and almost on the border between real and imagined
And here’s a photo of it:
holes 3
RJP and I went to the Textile Center and it was fun and helpful to think about translating my ideas about holes into actual fabric and textures. I found some black netting that will be helpful and another wildly color thin fabric that might work. The question now is: how to use the fabric. I’m not sure it’s can be as simple as cutting the fabric in the shape of my blind spot — that just seems like bad decoration. What I want to do is use texture to convey how I see/read and what it feels like to do these things with my blind spot. My blind spot is rarely actually visible, and when it is, it’s not a black, opaque spot.
A few new ideas: cover the words where the blind spot is in plastic that you can see through, but that makes words too fuzzy to read.
A lattice of twigs, gathered at the gorge, covering the blind spot — when I see these twigs, it often reminds of my scrambled central vision.
Some sort of fuzzy, fluffy texture that evokes softness, which is one thing that happens to my central vision with less working cones: everything is softer, less detailed, not sharp or harsh
The key, I think, is to use texture to communicate different aspects of my new ways of seeing with hardly any cone cells: it’s fuzzy and soft; it’s vague; it seems like there’s a film over it and that I can almost see it but not quite
Get out ICE
Read about Minnesota lawyers quietly organizing to help immigrant families:
Lawyers Built a Network: MPR also reported Thursday that hundreds of Minnesota attorneys volunteered during the surge to challenge immigration detentions in federal court, creating a rapid pro bono legal network across the state. Lawyers from a wide range of practice areas stepped in, and the article describes a system that turned scattered cases into coordinated courtroom action. It is one more reminder that some of the most important resistance in this story has happened quietly, inside petitions, filings, and courtrooms.
Sean Snow on Facebook / 13 march 2026
and from the article Sean Snow is referencing:
Since the beginning of so-called “Operation Metro Surge” in December, attorneys in Minnesota have filed more than 1,000 cases challenging the legality of immigration arrests and detentions.
Many of those filings came from lawyers who don’t normally practice immigration law.
Ran over the lake street bridge and to the monument today. When was the last time I ran this route? Just checked, it was 5 nov 2025. Wow! Of course, part of the reason why I haven’t run over there is because of the winter; they don’t plow the sidewalk on the bridge, and St. Paul, where the monument is, doesn’t plow their trails as well as Minneapolis. But another reason is definitely ICE; I’ve been staying closer to home with my runs because it feels safer.
Today’s run was good; I felt (mostly) strong, although my legs/feet are sore from wearing the shoes that make them hurt. It was windy and cold on the bridge, but it was beautiful. Steel gray water, open and high enough to hide the sandbars. Scattered stretches of the east and west banks were glowing with white snow. The sun was dulled by a thin layer of clouds.
10 Things
drip drip drip drip — the steady drip of water falling off the bridge near the east steps
graffiti — pink and orange and black block letters under the bridge
I only encountered 1 or 2 people over the bridge, both walking
the bells of st. thomas chiming at noon! 15 minutes later, at 12:15
running above shadow falls I glimpsed a dark flash of something — a tree? no, a person
with several more glances I realized the person was not hiking but running
they were nearing the worn dirt trail that climbs up and out of the ravine
St. Paul has replaced the port-a-potty at the edge of the monument parking lot — there is much less graffiti on this new one, and the door closes all the way — hooray!
near the edge of an overlook on the east bank, staring out at the other bluff and down at the water — a hiker emerges
a plaque on the bench for, “what a woman” Sharon. She was born 2 weeks after my dad was in 1941 and died in 2002 — so young!
Holes
Currently, I have 3 Holes erasure poems. Holes 1 is about my uneasy fellowship with the word. Holes 2 is about how the hole (my blind spot) makes it unprofitable to have faith in the visible. And Holes 3 is about falling through the hole into “who knows where”, on the border between the real and surreal. I need to do at least one more hole about the small holdout-of-a-hole in the very center of my vision that enables me to still read (even if that reading is slow and sometimes unreliable).
Tomorrow, RJP and I go shopping for textiles and textures at the Stashery, so today I’m working on mapping out Holes 3. I’m using “Me, Myself, and I: Helen Oyeyemi’s Novel of Cognitive Dissonance” from The New Yorker, August 25, 2025. Here is the version I just drafted:
swap the dead-eyed liturgy of doomed vision with shadowed acts that leap for the light (OR flee from the light?)
read sentences sliced in half with strangeness each one glitch ing enough to let in the improbable
fall through the hole your reading eyes find / or your reading finds / or your eyes find and land in a logic of blur and almost
Is this too many words to easily/cleanly map out? Let’s find out! And if not, let’s shift the form to make it work! — several minutes pass — Okay, I mapped it, and it seems like too many words. I think I’ll save my “darling” — the line that started it all about swapping the dead-eyed liturgy for another project — a liturgy of shadowed acts and the periphery! Anyway, I’ll try to keep the rest of the poem, and figure out the rest of holes is a project tomorrow morning.
Get Out ICE and Ice
The other day I wondered when the ice would be gone from Lake Nokomis. This morning, Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board offered a prediction!
Minneapolis Parks Water Quality staff have tracked “ice off” dates on city lakes for decades. Ice off is declared when a lake is substantially free of ice after being fully frozen.
We’re probably not setting any records like 2018 or 2024, which dominate the record books. Staff estimate we could see ice off on small lakes like Powderhorn and Loring as soon as this weekend. It will probably be a few more weeks for larger lakes.
Will the HUGE winter storm we’re expecting on Saturday night and all day Sunday impact the ice off date? BTW, I’m pretty sure that they used to refer to this as the ice out date; I think they’ve changed it because of the very negative association with ICE. I checked past entries on my log, and yes, that was what it was called. Negative association aside, I like ice out better than ice off.
Snow. A dusting last night, then a little more in the morning. An inch? Enough to make everything white. I was happy to be done with winter, but I don’t mind the snow. Since past snow has already melted and the ground has already warmed up, the snow didn’t stick around. By the time I went out for my run in the afternoon, almost everything was clear. The run didn’t feel easy, but I pushed through several difficult moments and kept going. Hooray for mental victories!
I listened to the dripping and gushing and the wheel whooshing as I ran south, 2 playlists — “Bunnies and Rabbits” and “the Wheelin’ Life” — as I ran back north.
10 Things
sh sh sh — the shifting grit under my feet
the wet pavement was shining and sparkling in the sun — so bright sometimes that I thought it was slick ice
entering minnehaha park, the parking lot was empty
exiting the park 10 or more minutes later, there was one car at the far end of the parking lot
the creek was rushing
the sidewalk on the bridge just above the falls was wet and clear — last week someone had chalked a long message on it, which I couldn’t read because of my bad vision
on the walk just before I started, I noticed a small black bird skittering along the grass — it had a small circle of white feathers below its eye
a runner in a bright red jacket stopped at the Rachel Dow Memorial Bench, a minute later they ran down a hill on the winchell trail
only 1 or 2 small patches of ice, a few puddles
I almost didn’t remember this one! — three people on the bridge over the falls, looking over the creek side. One, to the others, pointing down at the creek: look, there’s 75 cents! One of the others, joked (I hope): better go down there and get it!
Rabbit Recap
Slowly but surely, I’m getting to the end of my rabbit recap, but not today! See past rabbit recaps here: 9 march, 6 march, 5 march, and 4 march.
14 — 25 march 2026
Here’s a useful explanation of some reasons why I do monthly challenges about new topics, like rabbits (or wind or dirt, etc.):
And what’s the point of all of this? Following the rabbit down the rabbit hole is a wonderful distraction. It is also an excellent opportunity to learn. And to learn more about rabbits, which leads to caring about them as living things and as symbols. This caring might (is) enabling me to open up a closed part of myself (closed = strong dislike of rabbits). And it is helping me to think more broadly and specifically about the impacts of humans and human encroachment on environments and the consequences of that encroachment for humans and non-humans. Plus, all (or any) of it could inspire new poems.
A quick summary of some rabbits references and reveries: the killer bunny in Monty Python; Bunny Lebowski; Rabbit in Red matchbook from Halloween; Jimmy Stewart’s invisible bunny in Harvey; Max and Ruby; the PBS doc The Pill; Rabbit in Winnie-the-Pooh; the Cadbury Creme Egg Bunny; The Runaway Bunny; fix me hausenpffefer right away!
Rabbits in Diane Seuss:
excerpt from backyard song / Diane Seuss — I LOVE this whole poem. I’d like to use it as inspiration for a hole poem and a bunny poem!
Uncorked, I had a thought: I want the want I dreamed of wanting once, a quarter cup of sneak-peek at what prowls in the back, at what sings in the wet rag space behind the garage, back where the rabbits nest
excerpt from Her first poem had a rabbit / Diane Seuss — I want to bring in the optical illusion of the bunny and duck + the idea of what seems mild but is really wild
She tended toward rabbits back then. Toward the theoretically mild
that are really wild. Like ducks on a pond that is really a moon
New Yorker Experiment: A hole through the bottom of the known world
Today I worked on the template for my hole poem that erases the “Whisker Wars.” It has some of my blind spot, some big circles (from a iron pill cap), some medium sized-circles (lexipro cap), small (a quarter), and extra small (a penny). I want to create texture for the blind spots but leave the circles alone as pencil/gray.
a hole through the bottom of the known world
My choice of blind spots vs. circles, and the size of the circles, was mostly decided by what would fit where, but there might be some room to play around with some of it. I’ll think about it some more.
The words: nothing still / details drift like snow / cut off heads with pewter-colored faces float / a hole through the bottom of the known world / here it’s unprofitable to have faith in the visible — should it be what is visible?
added an hour later: I realized a further clarification on the idea of the hole and holes. The blind spot creates a hole in my vision, an absence that has created an uneasy fellowship with the world and made it unprofitable to have faith in the visible. But, there is also the small hole that remains in the otherwise dark blind spot that enables me to still read — it’s a small hole, and it’s getting smaller, but it’s still there. I’m noticing that my whisker wars poem offers many different sizes of holes depending on how many words I’m trying to fit in it. I need to have a poem that highlights that tiny hole holdout — ooo, holdout is a word in the whiskey wars article. Should I do a completely different poem using the same text?
Get out ICE
Each morning a local journalist, Sean Snow, offers updates on what’s happening in Minnesota, both what ICE and those in state and federal government that support ICE are doing, and how people and their communities are fighting back. I read them on Facebook, but he also posts them on Threads, Instagram, Tiktok, and YouTube. Today one of his examples
— sitting at the dining room table, drinking my coffee while I write this, I just heard a long goose fly by — honk honk —
was about “a real act of public memory” n St. Paul:
Testimony Builds The Record: Minnesota residents, advocates, and families testified Tuesday in St. Paul before the chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights about what they experienced during Operation Metro Surge. Star Tribune reported that people described racial discrimination, abusive detention conditions, treatment of protesters, and the deaths of two citizens, all in hopes of pushing the commission toward a formal investigation. This was not a final ruling or a courtroom win. But it was a real act of public memory and accountability on a day when it would have been easy for the country to start looking away.
Today I had a blood test to re-check my iron and my thyroid in the morning. No coffee or food until it was done at 11, so also no running. Just sitting and writing and witnessing the world outside my windows: walkers, one runner, some dogs, the little girl at the daycare next door named Mabel stopping a walker and forcing a conversation, elementary boys — so LOUD — running down the street.
New Yorker Experiment / Holes
A slight shift in my first hole poem. Instead of, another name for barely not blind is a hole in your vision that makes for an uneasy fellowship with the world, it is, another name for barely not blind is a hole in your vision that makes for an uneasy fellowship with the word. So, word not world. Since this poem is about how I read, word makes more sense to me. Part of me would like to keep both world and word, but most of me thinks I should keep it simple with word.
In my draft version, I’ve hastily shaded in the circles/my blind spot with pencil, so they are all gray blobs and dots. The only times I recall seeing gray blobs are: looking at a backlit face and staring at the wall for several seconds. When I look at text, like on this screen, I see a few words in the center and then . . . what? Difficult to put into words. Everything is buzzing, shifting, textured. I want to experiment with the blind spot blob in my poem by adding texture — I mentioned adding gauze or glitter on 8 march. RJP and I are planning to visit the Stashery at the Textile Center this week to see if I can find some cool materials.
While I let that simmer, I’ll return to the last page of experiment #5 (continued from 9 march):
words that stand out from Whisker Wars, page 3
face / faced
self-mastery
the Lord knows who
hold outs persist ed
who was as devoted as
you might think
emerged
embraced
writing
float /ed
only
unprofitable
propaganda
a sideshow staple / enfreakment
mishaps
cannot fully explains
died
few of us see
express rapture at seeing
poem reads
endures
Here’s what I have so far:
nothing still details drift like snow cut off heads with pewter-colored faces float
a hole through the bottom of the known world.
here it is unprofitable to have faith / to put faith / to believe in the visible / what is visible
an uneasy fellowship with the world
As of now, I’ve decided to use the line uneasy fellowship with the word, but I also do have an uneasy fellowship with the world because I am barely not blind. Here’s an example of that uneasy fellowship from today’s visit to the clinic for a blood test:
I walk into the clinic with Scott and he points out the line for me to stand in as I wait to be checked in. It’s happened so fast that I have not had a chance to read the sign that tells me what this line is, I just know I’m supposed to stand in it. So I stand and wait with the person behind the counter directly in front of me, several feet away. There is another line with people in it, waiting, with a person behind the counter directly in front of them. I wait, looking vaguely in front of me at the person behind the counter and the person they are helping, trying not to stare or look as if I’m impatient (even though I am). To the side, I notice the person being helped at the other counter is done and hear the woman behind that counter tell the person in her line, wait. Then I hear her call out sharply, Scheduled! And then, Scheduled! I wonder what she means; it sounds strange. And then, Scheduled! I feel several quick, sharp pokes in my back. The person behind me is trying to get my attention. I realize that the woman behind the opposite counter is calling out to me. I am “Scheduled” because I have a scheduled appointment.1Oh, I’m sorry! I approach the counter and she barks at me, name and date of birth! She softens a little after I answer promptly.
For a flash, I wanted to cry, but didn’t. It is such a small thing that doesn’t really matter. For a brief moment, I was that person, the irritating one in the line that wasn’t paying attention, holding everything up. Yet, it is a reminder of what I can’t do, or what I can barely do, or what I can only do with a lot of effort — and patience from those around me. It is a reminder that I am nearly (legally) blind.
I suppose these moments might matter less the more I experience them — both because I’ll get better at accounting for them and better at not being bothered by them. And I suppose I should experience them more. I just told FWA and RJP and they disagreed. FWA said “Choosing to be in those situations is like selling your soul!” Yes! Repeated this conversation to Scott and he said, but you do need to learn how to deal with these situations. I suppose. Maybe I can find some middle ground?
It helped to talk with FWA and RJP and have them not only validate but bolster my assessment of the situation as not my fault. A thought: did the woman say more than Scheduled!, but all i heard was that part? I don’t think so.
Get Out Ice
The ice at Lake Nokomis is fraying at the edges. Will the lake ice be completely gone by the end of the month?!
Not to long after this happened I wondered: why didn’t she call out, person in the scheduled line or something with a bit more of an explanation.↩︎
