3.25 miles
trestle turn around
47 degrees
A little cooler, but sunny. I wore shorts and my legs didn’t feel cold. The green continues to spread. I’m sure I still have a view of the river but I don’t remember looking at it, not even once. I saw some rowers heading down to the rowing club, but didn’t hear them on the water. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker. Was passed by several groups of young and fast runners. High school or college teams? Not sure.
Mostly I felt good. My heart rate is still high. I guess I lost some fitness on my almost 2 week break. Monday, I’ll try some more deliberate walk-run segments.
Listened to other runners, cars, water gushing out of sewer pipes heading north, my “I’m Shadowing You” playlist heading back south.
Ran on the grass for a few stretches to avoid other runners and walkers. Thought about how several sites recommended running on more gentle surfaces, like grass, when dealing with a herniated disc or sciatica.
before the run
I’m thinking more about open fields, meadows, lawns, boulevards, village greens, grasslands both wild and manufactured. Grassy spaces I recall from childhood, living in sub-divisions in North Carolina and Virginia and Iowa: soccer fields, manicured lawns, pastures just beyond my backyard.
I decided to look through the poems I’ve gathered for more meadow poems. Found Robert Duncan’s Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow. Wow.
as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,
that is not mine, but is a made place,
that is mine, it is so near to the heart,
an eternal pasture folded in all thought
so that there is a hall therein
that is a made place, created by light
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.
An eternal pasture with a hall made by light and shadows. After the poem, I wrote about Duncan’s idea of projective verse
poetry shaped by rhythms of poet’s breath. So cool–I want to explore this more, thinking about breathing when I run vs. walk vs. sit.
“Olson argues that the breath should be a poet’s central concern, rather than rhyme, meter, and sense. To listen closely to the breath, Olson states, “is to engage speech where it is least careless—and least logical.” The syllable and the line are the two units led by, respectively, the ear and the breath:
“the HEAD, by way of the EAR, to the SYLLABLE
the HEART, by way of the BREATH, to the LINE”
poetry foundation introduction to “Projective Verse”
The heart, by way of the breath, to the line — This idea will be the start of a moving while writing experiment!
after the run
up to the wind-stripped branches shadow-
signing the ground before you the way, lately, all
the branches seem to, or you like to say they do,
which is at least half of the way, isn’t it, toward
belief — whatever, in the end, belief
is…
(My Meadow, My Twilight/ Carl Phillips)
My husband and I were arguing about a bench we wanted to buy and put in part of our backyard, a part which is actually a meadow of sorts, a half acre with tall grasses and weeds and the occasional wild flower because we do not mow it but leave it scrubby and unkempt.
(The Bench/ Mary Ruefle)
And, back to the field:
Crossing a field, wading
through nothing
but timothy grass,imagine yourself passing from
and into. Passing through
doorway after
doorway after doorway.
(Threshold/ Maggie Smith)
After the rain, it’s time to walk the field
again, near where the river bends. Each year
I come to look for what this place will yield –
lost things still rising here.
(After the Rain/ Jared Carter)