45 minutes
longfellow flats
32 degrees
Colder today, but beautiful. Sun, shadows, cold air! We — me and Delia — walked through the neighborhood then over to the trail then down the old stone steps to the river. A bare forest floor, no mud or ice or snow, only soft dirt. I unhitched Delia from her leash and she bolted off into the sand, always waiting at the edge of my vision for me. If I didn’t follow her, she loop back. If I did, she continued forward until she reached my edge, then look back and wait again. What a dog. The sand was mushy, the water was blue. It sparkled some, but was mostly still, or moving so slow I couldn’t detect it. When we left the river, I powered up the steps, all 112 of them — or a little less, when I took 2 at a time. That felt good! Not easy, but energizing. At the top I could tell my glutes had fired. I felt a nice warm burn. As I continued walking, my back felt looser and I thought to myself, yes, I will climb more steps this spring and summer. Maybe I’ll even devote a month to steps — poems about steps, a playlist, finally taking some of the cool steps in St. Paul!
10 Things
- the short section of the stone wall in the tunnel of trees that curves in slightly — have I ever noticed this before? why does it curve here?
- voices drifting
- the bells of St. Thomas and their noonday song
- chick a dee dee dee dee
- the soft drumming of a woodpecker
- a bright blue sky — cloudless, planeness, birdless, moonless
- some dark think sticking out of the water — a log? rock? a piling for an abandoned dam?
- breathing in cold air: sharp
- a pile of rusty, bent pipes on the boulevard — were these pipes the reason why the sewer was leaking?
- 2 people and a dog, ahead, walking slower than us. As we neared the corner, I repeated in my head, please turn please turn, and they did!
The leaking sewer reminded me of something from last night as we watched pro cycling — the time trail for Tirreno Adriatico. Whenever a cyclist was slowing down their pace, the commentator would say they were leaking time. This bothered Scott: why would you say leaking? why not losing?
What does it mean to leak time? What does it look or feel or sound or smell like? Was the commentator thinking about air leaking out of a tire?
before the walk
Listening to my “Doin’ Time” playlist as I write. The Kinks’ “Time” is on:
Time lives our lives with us
Walks side by side with us
Time is so far from us
But time is among us
Time is ahead of us
Above and below us
Standing beside us
And looking down on us
When we were young
And our bodies were strong
We thought we’d sail
Into the sunsets
When our time came along
Now that we’re nearing
The end of the line
Time has changed
Time would heal
Time will mend and conceal
In the end everything will be fine
And if we concentrate
Time will heal all the hate
All in good time
We go on
Drifting on
Dreaming dreams
Telling lies
Generally wasting our time
Suddenly it’s too late
Time has come and can’t wait
There’s no more time
Encountered this shadow poem during my morning, poem-of-the-day practice:
Any Evening/ James Richardson
A far bird sings again, a little further.
There is less and less difference
between your shadow
and the shadow inside you
and all the shadows,
and the evening softly taking hold
says It has always been evening
and now you know.
shadows: yours, the one inside of you, all the shadows
These lines made me think about my idea that the only things I feel as real — solid, fully formed — are the shadows. Other forms, with their details, are fuzzy and — not flickering but slowly vibrating or shaking or softly pulsing.