4.2 miles
minnehaha falls and back
21 degrees
100% clear path
Turned right instead of left today. Ran towards the falls. Love how the river looks like a giant empty crater right after the oak savanna. Overcast, no shadow. Heard lots of things today. Felt cold, but warmed up quickly, except for my index fingers. It took almost 2 miles for them to warm up. Annoying. Also, my right foot felt cold for the first mile.
Sounds
- the banging of my zipper pull against my jacket
- my breathing
- the scratch scratch scratching of the sandy grit on the clear path
- kids yelling on the school playground
- the low, steady hum of traffic on the far away freeway
- chirping birds
- clanging and banging of something against metal–I think it was the chain/rope against the flagpole at the school?
- A truck whooshing by on the Ford Bridge as I ran under it
- A kid possibly freaking out at the falls
- the buzzing of an airplane
- did I hear the falls rushing? I can’t remember–I do remember seeing it gush. So cool
- more clanging
- some disembodied voices hovering near the parkway
- 2 people deep in conversation
Other things I remember:
- the cracked asphalt above the oak savanna, just south of a split rail fence and the big boulder that looks like an armchair, was easy to spot because its crater was filled in with ice
- a guy looking up at a tree on the Winchell Trail near 42nd–what was he doing?
- the stump of a tree in the tree graveyard–where the tree with teeth used to be, across from locks and dam #1–looked like a person sleeping or a person who had fallen or a person who was acting strangely. Had to stare at it for a long time to figure out what it was: just a tree stump
- without any leaves it was easy to see the short hill that leads up to the ford bridge–in the summer, it is completely hidden
- the view of the river from the bluff heading south is beautiful and big and breathtaking
- thought about my form and how the right side of my body seems to lean slightly forward more than the left–is this why it always looks like I’m swinging by left arm farther back?
Natural Forces/ Vicente Huidobro
One glance
to shoot down the albatross
Two glances
to hold back the landscape
at the river´s edge
Three glances
to turn the girl
into a kite
Four glances
to hold down the train
that falls into the abyss
Five glances
to relight the stars
blown out by the hurricane
Six glances
to prevent the birth
of the aquatic child
Seven glances
to prolong the life
of the bride
Eight glances
to turn the sea
into sky
Nine glances
to make the trees of the wood
dance
Ten glances
to see the beauty that shows up
between a dream and a catastrophe
Such power with these glances! I read a little something about Huidobro and his belief in creacionismo and man as god/godlike and “a space where the poet could assume a role as the divine”. Wow, oftentimes because of my vision I feel the opposite with my glances: I’m unmaking the world. Oh–I want to think about this some more! Here’s some info about this poet from a google doodle on his 127th birthday.
Copied the poem into my notebook and wrote: The power of the poet! The power of one who notices, who pays attention! Love this idea of paying attention as a way to imagine/create a world. Is it possible to disentangle this making of a world from hubris and pride and power over?