5.5 miles
Franklin Hill turn around
18 degrees/ snow flurries
100% clear path!
Another day with a clear path and not too cold weather and hardly any wind. Yes! Greeted Dave the Daily Walker twice–once at the beginning and then again at the end. The river was beautiful. Dark grayish brown with a few chunks of ice, moving slowly. The walls of the gorge were white and the air above it was misty with snow flurries. The sun was out, then gone, then out again. Not enough sun to see my shadow. The floodplain forest below my favorite spot was winter-perfect. White and woodsy and blueish gray. Heading south, right by the trestle, I heard a woodpecker pecking away. So loud. It echoed across the gorge. Encountered a few walkers and fat tires. Any other runners? I can’t remember.
Started my run with a sense of unspecified unease. It lingered for a few miles but got lost as I ran up the hill. By the time I reached the top, I felt better. I always feel better after I’ve run. Usually during it too.
Lines for Winter/ DAVE LUCAS
Poor muse, north wind, or any god
who blusters bleak across the lake
and sows the earth earth-deep with ice.
A hoar of fur stung across the vines:
here the leaves in full flush, here
abandoned to four and farther winds.
Bless us, any god who crabs the apples
and seeds the leaf and needle evergreen.
What whispered catastrophe, winter.
What a long night, beyond the lamplight,
the windows and the frost-ferned glass.
Bless the traveler and the hearth he travels to.
Bless our rough hands, wind-scabbed lips,
bless this our miscreant psalm.
This is not how I feel about winter, especially today when it’s sunny and clear and not too cold, but I still like this poem. “Bless us, any god who crabs the apples”–Love this line! And “blusters bleak” and “frost-ferned glass” and “miscreant psalm”!