5 miles
franklin bridge and back
17 degrees / feels like 7
What a gift this winter-almost-spring run is this morning! A reminder of why I love winter runner with its cold, crisp air and quiet calm. It was a little difficult to breathe, with my nose closing up on me (hooray for sinuses), and it didn’t always feel effortless. Still, I was happy to be outside with the world — the birds (pileated woodpeckers, geese, cardinals), the Regulars (Dave, the Daily Walker and Daddy Long Legs), and the river, sometimes brown, sometimes blue.
Before I went out for my run, I read a lot of different poems and essays about poetry and breath. Decided I would think about rhythmic breathing, running rhythms, and chants. I started by counting my foot strikes, them matching it up with my breathing of In 2 3/ Out 2 or Out 2/ In 2 3: 123/45, 123/45 then 54/321, 54/321. A few miles later, I thought about a verse from Emily Dickinson’s poem, ‘Tis so much joy! Tis so much joy!” that I imagine to be a prayer or a spell or reminder-as-chant. I started repeating it in my head:
Life is but Life! And Death, but Death!
Bliss is, but Bliss, and Breath but Breath!
With this prayer/chant, I matched the words up to my foot strikes in several different ways, none of which were 123/45 or 54/321.
Equal stress on each syllable/word, and the altering of the poem slightly:
Life Is But Life
Death Is But Death
Bliss Is But Bliss
Breath Is But Breath
Then in ballad form (I think?), with alternating lines of: stressed un un stressed / 3 stressed but silent beats (or not silent, but voiced by my feet, striking the ground):
Life is but Life
x x x
Death is but Death
x x x
Bliss is but Bliss
x x x
Breath is but Breath
x x x
Then in 6, with 2 feet of stressed, unstressed, unstressed (a dactyl):
Life is but Life is but
Life is but Life is but
Death is but Death is but
Death is but Death is but
Bliss is but Bliss is but
Bliss is but Bliss is but
Breath is but Breath is but
Breath is but Breath is but
Then in 4 again, one spoken beat, three silent:
Life xxx
Life xxx
Life xxx
Life xxx
Or, like “The Safety Dance”:
Life life life life
Death death death death
Bliss bliss bliss bliss
Breath breath breath breath
These were so much fun to do, and helpful in keeping me going as I grew tired. When I chanted them, my pace was about 8:40 and my heart rate was in the upper 170s (pretty standard for me). At one point, I pulled out my phone and recorded myself mid-run. Later, when I stopped running and was walking back, I recorded myself again.
It’s interesting to check back with the poem now and see that I had added words to make the rhythm more steady and even. Seeing how Dickinson wrote it, I want to try these chants on another run with the right words. How will I fit “And Death, but Death!” with my feet? Is this part of Dickinson’s disruption of rhythm?
I like the repetition of these chants and how, if you repeat them enough, they lose their meaning, or change meaning, or change the space you’re running through, or change you. It reminds me of some lines from a poem I recently wrote about running by the gorge and rhythmic breathing. It’s in 3/2, In 2 3/Out 2:
I
settle in-
to a
rhythm: 3
then 2.
First counting
foot strikes,
then chanting
small prayers.
I beat out
meaning
until what’s
left are
syllables,
then sounds,
then something
new, or
old, returned.
Wow, this is so much fun for me, thinking through how my running, and breath, and poetry, and body, and the words work (and sometimes don’t work) together. Very cool.
And, here’s a poem that doesn’t fit neatly with my running rhythm/chants, but fits with the idea of getting outside to move by the river:
How to Begin/ Catherine Abbey Hodges
Wipe the crumbs off the counter.
Find the foxtail in the ear of the old cat.
Work it free. Step into your ribcage.
Feel the draft of your heart’s doors
as they open and close. Hidden latches
cool in your hand.
Hear your marrow keep silence,
your blood sing. Finch-talk
in the bush outside the window.
You’re a small feather, winged seed, wisp
of cotton. Thread yourself
through a hole in the button on the sill.
You’re a strand of dark thread
stitching a word to a river. Then another.