3.15 miles
marshall loop
69 degrees / dew point: 69
10:00 am
Last night it stormed. Thunder, heavy rain, wind. This morning everything wet with branches littering the path. A gray sky. Too humid. I ran north on the river road through the tunnel of trees up to and over the lake street bridge. Heard the deep voice of a coxswain, then saw a few rowing boats in the distance, closer to the ford bridge. Climbed the marshall hill, across Cretin, then down the river road on the east side. I stopped on the lake street bridge to study the river. Just below me, I saw something in the water — a sandbar just below the surface? Yes! The sandbar stretched northeast. Only a trace, a slight lightening of the water.
Checked my phone and noticed Scott was less than a mile away. Ran back over the bridge to St. Paul to meet him at the end of his run. We stopped briefly at a bench overlooking the river and I took a picture of this plaque embedded in concrete beside it:
Earlier this morning, I wrote a draft of a poem about the giant pedal boat swans at Lake Nokomis:
untitled/ sara puotinen*
Too big for this small
lake, half a dozen
giant white swans are
spread out across the
far shore in a slow
processional of
magic & menace.
Each time I breathe to
my left they appear.
Sometimes I ignore
them, sometimes I race
them, and sometimes I
believe they’re not boats.
*a few years back I decided my writing name would be Sara Lynne Puotinen, but last month, when someone in a facebook comment referred to me as Sara Lynne, I started rethinking this decision. I like Sara or Sara Lynne Puotinen (the way I say lynne and puWATTinen rhymes), but I really do not like Sara Lynne!