Month: June 2025

june 22/RUNBIKESWIM

run: 2 miles
2 trails
81 degrees
dew point: 73

Before biking over for a swim, I decided to run a few miles in the heat. 7 am and already 81. Ugh. Even with the heat, it was nice to get out by the gorge. Was able to greet Mr. Morning. I know I looked at the river, but I don’t remember what I saw. Was it blue? Probably. Was it shimmering? Possibly. Didn’t hear any rowers or roller skiers. A few bikes on the trail, 4 bikes on the road, out for a serious ride, hugging the curb to let cars go by. I heard sprinklers and dripping water and scattered voices.

image: walking up the 38th street steps from the winchell trail to the river road trail, the undersides of the steps had a faint colorful glow — one step was purple, another pink, orange, green, red, yellow. Was it the light? No someone had used chalk to color the steps. For Pride month, I’m assuming. Very cool.

The Alchemist/ Louise Bogan

I burned my life, that I might find 
A passion wholly of the mind, 
Thought divorced from eye and bone, 
Ecstasy come to breath alone. 
I broke my life, to seek relief 
From the flawed light of love and grief.

With mounting beat the utter fire 
Charred existence and desire. 
It died low, ceased its sudden thresh.
I found unmysterious flesh—
Not the mind’s avid substance—still
Passionate beyond the will.

mind/body split described as thought divorced from the eye and bone, and breath alone

unmysterious flesh — not pure mind but something passionate beyond mind and will

I like the rhyme here; it doesn’t feel forced

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
84 degrees (there) / 88 (back)

So windy and hot! Difficult, especially on the way there. I seemed to be always biking straight into the wind and out of the shade. Other than the heat and the wind and the bright sun, it was great. I’m feeling comfortable on my bike this year.

5 Bike Things / 5 Swim Things

  1. bike: a big bird — eagle? turkey vulture? — soaring above the falls parking lot
  2. bike: another biker far ahead, looking small and just in the center of my vision, reminding me of the far off barn in the vision test
  3. bike: so many e-bikes on the trail, which I think is good and not good — it’s complicated
  4. bike: more kids splashing and swimming and yelling in the creek — didn’t see them, but heard them and saw an inner tube on the side of the trail
  5. bike: the stand of trees to the right of the bike trail in the stretch between lake hiawatha and lake nokomis looked deep green and cool and inviting
  6. swim: minnows and small 6 inch fish near the shore
  7. swim: the underwater plants looked orange or greenish brown and they didn’t look like plumes or feathers, but like christmas tree branches. did they have an attitude of a plume? what would that be — ornamental? showy? preening? Nope, these plants had an attitude of a fungus or rash or disease — spreading, taking over, menacing
  8. the light underwater: I can see them as bars, a series of them, slanted and spread out from one central point
  9. sparkling water above, sparkle friends below
  10. so choppy from the wind, rocking me — not gentle but not rough either

swim: 3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
86 degrees

It was so windy and choppy that they couldn’t put the green buoys in. Just 3 orange buoys today and out and back. I thought maybe I would only do 2 loops, but I felt good enough to do a third. Nice work! The choppy water was difficult — especially breathing — but I liked it. I thought about a poem I wrote that has yet to find a home about stroking straight into waves. Not fighting the lake but taking up its challenge.

The water is still fairly clear and I enjoyed looking at the vegetation and the lake floor as I approached the shore. Much easier to tell when it’s shallow enough to stand up!

During one loop, noticing the sparkle on the water, I suddenly felt happy and grateful and content. What a life! I love swimming in this water.

Just remembered something else: stroking roughly through the water, being buffeted by waves, I felt like a boat moving across choppy water, half-submerged. Yesterday, I was talking to FWA about how I imagine myself less of a fish, more of a boat.

more from Anne Carson and “An Essay on Swimming”:

Saturday 6:30 a.m. Swimming.

the motion of the strange white hands. Gold rungs slide past beneath. Red water plants waver up from the bottom in an attitude of plumes. How slow is the slow trance of wisdom, which the swimmer swims into.

Are my hands white when I swim, or is it just the legs and feet of other swimmers?
Not shafts of light but gold rungs?
The water plants are orange or green, but never red, right? (I’ll check tomorrow).
Plumes is a better description than feathers.
The slow trance of wisdom. Swimming for over an hour in lake nokomis puts me in a trance, for sure.

Friday 8 a.m. Swimming.

On the surface the water is navy blue and
corrugated by wind. Spots of white foam crowd hectically up
and down the waves. there is an urgency to it as if a telephone
were ringing in the house. But there is no telephone in the house.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the lake surface navy blue, but I have seen it corrugated. I like that word as a description for a rough surface.

urgency like a telephone ringing in a house, but there is no house. Is there a name for experiencing the same feeling but in a different context. I don’t think this is just metaphor, or is it?

Wednesday 8:30 a.m. Swimming.

the swimmer inserts himself into the dark green glass.

Wednesday 5:45 p.m. Swimming.

The lake is cool and rippled by an inattentive wind. The swimmer moves heavily through an oblique greenish gloom of underwater sunset

from an earlier essay in The Anthropology of Water: “The Wishing Jewel: Introduction to Water Margins:

My brother once showed me a piece of quartz that contained, he said, some trapped water older than all the seas in our world. This line reminds me of a poem I re-encountered yesterday during my “on this day” reading practice:

from Conversation with a Pebble/Alyson Hallett

I kiss the pebble,
Watch the moisture from my lips sink in.

That’s what I’m hiding,
It says. Water. The tiniest Rivers, lakes, seas.

Ideas of what water
Can be. Yes, pebble says,
I am hiding all the world’s memory.

5

I’ve probably missed some, but here are the five letter words (minus plurals) that I found in this entry:

gorge
greet
river
trail
heard
water
voice
street
trail
faint
green
light
chalk
color
pride
month
split
alone
rhyme
windy
shade
great
eagle
above
ahead
small
think
creek
inner
stand
right
brownplume
point
below
rough
today
maybe
third
still
clear
floor
shore
happy
being
about
white
slide
waver
trance
other
never
check

rough windy rhyme
stand still today
below color trance
waver above water
faint floor shore
above gorge being
think inner creek
never point alone
happy water slide
great white check

This is fun!

june 21/RUN

4 miles
the Monument and back
82 degrees
dew point: 74

Last night I decided I would get up early and do a 7 mile run. Then I checked the forecast. 80 at 6 am. What? No thanks. I went to bed thinking I might skip running today and tomorrow (the low is 80). Then I woke up at 6 and even though it felt oppressive outside, I decided to go for a run. Maybe a 5k. Somehow, without meaning to, I ran 4 miles. It was hard. I felt almost dizzy once as I walked up the lake street bridge steps. And I’m glad I did it. Even with a few extra walk breaks I consider this run a victory.

Yes, it was warm and uncomfortable, but it was worth it for the quiet and for the strange light: darker, a little ominous, the green so deep, not glowing but pulsing? not sure what word I would use.

10+ Things

  1. on the lake street bridge from east to west, to the right a pale blue sky, to the left darker blueish-purple
  2. on the lake street bridge, wind blowing hard from the south, a bird getting a boost and flying so fast
  3. from the monument, I could her Shadow Falls dripping
  4. small white caps on the river
  5. the gentle slope of a mowed stretch of grass between Shadow Falls and the Monument
  6. the shuffling of a runner’s feet across the road
  7. the clicking and clacking of ski poles through the trees and on the other side of the ravine
  8. at the Monument, the line of narrow paving stones near the water fountain — they looked old — when were they placed here and who did it?
  9. the swirling and waving of some wildflowers in the wind
  10. taking off my cap on the bridge because of the wind, feeling it hit my face and grab my hair
  11. encountered the runner who wears bright orange compression socks*

*I’ve encountered this runner enough that they’re officially a regular. I think I’ll call him Mr. Orange Socks

Listened to the wind and dripping water and the heavy air for 3 of the miles. Put in my “It’s Windy” playlist for the final mile. Windy has stormy eyes that flash at the sound of lies.

Encountered two Anne Carson poems this morning and it feels like a sign, or a nudge, to keep reading her The Anthropology of Water. One of this poems was from an 21 june entry in 2022 (Could I), and this one from today’s poem of the day:

Between Us And/ Anne Carson

BETWEEN US AND
animals is a namelessness.
We    flail    around
generically      —
camelopardalis   is   what
the Romans came up with
or  ”giraffe” ( it looked to
them like a camel crossed
with a leopard ) or get the
category wrong — a musk
Ox isn’t an ox at all but
more closely cognate with
the  goat —  and   when
choosing   to    name
individual  animals  we
pretend they are objects
(Spot) or virtues (Beauty)
or just other selves (Bob).

The idea of knowing the names of things has come up before on this blog. There’s the act of naming something, which is addressed in this poem and evidenced in my naming of “regulars,” and there is also the act of learning the name that a living thing calls itself. Robin Wall Kimmerer (Gathering Moss in 22 march 2024 entry), JJJJJerome Ellis (“A Litany of Names” from Aster of Ceremonies), and Alice Oswald (“Violent” in 16 feb 2025 entry) all describe this in their writing.

an hour later: Taking up the nudge to read more Anne Carson, I returned to The Anthropology of Water. I focused on the final section, “Margins: An Essay on Swimming By My Brother.” Wow! So many great descriptions of what it feels like to swim in a lake! I need to make a list.

I may have posted this bit before, but here’s Carson’s answer to the question, How does swimming figure into your writing?

It keeps me from being morose and crabby. Sometimes I think in the pool. Usually it’s a bad idea. The ideas you have in the pool are like the ideas you have in a dream, where you get this sentence that answers all questions you’ve ever had about reality and you get up groggily and write it down, and in the morning, it looks like “let’s buy bananas” or something completely irrelevant. Plus, I like water. Some people just need to be near water.

Interview in Paris Review

I am one of those people who needs be near water.

Back to the “An Essay on Swimming.” I like how it’s structured: journal entries titled with day of the week and time and either swimming or not swimming. Here’s the second entry:

Friday 4:00 p.m. Swimming.

In late afternoon the lake is shaded. There is the sudden luxury of the places where the cold springs come flooding up around the swimmer’s body from below like an opening dark green geranium of ice. Marble hands drift enormously in front of his face. He watches them move past him down into the lower water where red stalks float in dust. A sudden thin shaft of fish smell. No sleep here, the swimmer thinks as he shoots along through the utterly silent razor-glass dimness. One drop of water entirely awake.

I like how there’s no date. It’s placed in time, but vaguely.

that sudden luxury! I welcome those cold patches in lake nokomis when I swim but I don’t think they’re from cold springs. What are they from? Now when I feel them I will think: I’m being flooded with a dark green geranium of ice!

marble hands — yes! that’s how I should describe the pale legs and hands of swimmers that I’ve seen recently.

where red stalks float in dust — for me: curled green feathers that do more than float, they seem to reach up to/for me.

that’s me: one drop of water entirely awake

Recap, and to put on a list of Carson’s water descriptions to use/think about as I swim:

  • I’m being flooded with a dark green geranium of ice!
  • marble hands and legs
  • stalks that reach to/for me
  • me as one drop of water entirely awake

june 20/BIKESWIM

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis
83 degrees (there) / 75 degrees (back)

Windy. As I biked along the river road, the wind whistling past my ears, I wondered what it would be like at the lake. More people on the trail — biking and walking and running — than yesterday. Only once did I have a moment of, wow, I didn’t see that guy!, but I had plenty of time to correct my course, so no worries. Lots of ebikes zooming past me, also lots of on your lefts, which I really appreciate. One biker ahead of me liked to pedal hard then coast, his derailer? drive train? humming loudly. I’m not great with identifying bike parts. As I neared the beach, the wind seemed even stronger. Uh oh — how hard will this swim be?

swim: 3 loops
lake nokomis
79 degrees

Dropping my bag down at the lifeguard stand, another swimmer said, it’s windy today! then, good thing I can breathe on both sides. I agreed, yes, that’s a good skill to have. She was right, it did help. Heading towards the little beach, I breathed mostly on my left side, heading back to the main beach, my right.

I struggled with my nose plug for a minute or two; it didn’t want to stay put and kept sliding. It continued to do that as I swam, making a squeaking noise underwater.

In the first two loops, the current kept pushing me out and far from the buoys. Since I couldn’t see the buoys, this made it more challenging. I was not panicked or unsettled, only sorry that I severely routed another swimmer and motivated. In lap 3, I would crack this code and stay close to the buoys. And I did! Boom — I swam right by that second orange buoy, the one that had been so far away in loops 1 and 2. Swam right by the third orange buoy too. I really couldn’t see that one until I was right on top of it.

10 Things

  1. minnows! not a huge group, but at least a dozen in the shallow water
  2. today the milfoil looked green, not orange. as I swam over it, I stared down, looking for fish hanging out in its feathery branches — none seen
  3. an orange glow on the surface of the water from the orange buoy
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 breathe right 1 2 3 4 5 breathe left 1 2 3 4 breathe right 1 2 3 4 breathe right
  5. the sky started blue but my loop 2 it was white and covered with clouds — I bet that’s the cause of the temperature drop from bike 1 (83) to bike 2 (75)
  6. a plane above me, heading to the airport
  7. more shafts of light
  8. a sparkle on the surface of the water guiding me — another swimmer far ahead piercing the water with their hand
  9. more pale, kicking legs underwater
  10. a rough ride around the second green buoy

Another 3 loops. I wasn’t sure if I would do the third loop because of the chop, but I was motivated to figure out the course, so I did it, and I was fine. In fact, I had more energy in the last loop.

Returning to my bag and towel, a woman called out, did you see any fish? / no / good, that’s all I care about. This is my first time doing open swim / oh, good luck!

an experiment to try

In june 2023, I turned my wordle guesses into poems. I called it my wordle challenge. I haven’t played wordle since then, but this morning, encountering my entry from 20 june 2023, I was inspired by a poem I wrote using my wordle guesses: water / inert / frost:

Water is never inert
always falling searching
for somewhere else to be
even in rest 
as frost on winter’s window
it watches waits wants 
to find the floor

Make a list of as many five letters words I can think of in 5 minutes, then pick 3 (how, not sure about that yet), and turn them into a poem about stone, then water, or just stone, or just water. A variation: Use my log entry for today’s swim. Find all of the five letter words in it. Pick out some of them and turn them into a poem about stone or water or both.

update, 22 june 2025: Over the past two days, I made a list of all of the five letter words in the entry, then I started playing around with putting them into 3 word phrases.

night
would
early
thanks
might
today
dizzy
street
extra
worth
quiet
light
green
right
south
north
boost
small
white
river
slope
grass
water
bright
think
heavy
final
flash
sound
nudge
flail
camel
wrong
which

quiet green light
extra white river
slope grass sound
dizzy think boost
final camel flail
small water nudge
south street wrong
would today flash?
early night right

I think I’ll tag these with “five,” or should it be 5? 5.

june 19/RUNBIKESWIM

2.75 miles
trestle turn around
73 degrees
dew point: 63

Ugh! Too warm for me today. I wanted to get up earlier, so I went to bed at 9:45, but I still slept poorly and didn’t wake up until 8. A small victory: I wanted to turn around at a mile, but I kept going until I got to the trestle. Took a walk break, then ran a faster mile. I heard rowers and kids yelling. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker and Daddy Long Legs. Dodged a pack of people emerging from the rowing club entrance. Admired the cottonwood fuzz looking light green on the edge of the trail. Counted the stones stacked on the ancient boulder: 3, with another stone waiting for a friend. Stopped and stared at the ironwork of the trestle stretching to the east bank of the river.

before the run

Yesterday, this was the poem of the day:

Altitude/ Airea D. Matthews

Icarus, he advised,
heed the warning: don’t fly 
too near the sun or sea; 
stay the path.

But I mistook the sky for an iris,
and entered at the northern horizon,
where map edges blister,
and the compass wasps. 

I was dutiful but unwooed
by chisel and bench, contracts
scribbled in fig sap, or watching
Ariadne ungold time.

          What awe is there
in earthen labyrinths?

Wax molds itself sublime,
shapes wings each night.
Light refracts my name in
dialect only moths comprehend.

I belong elemental, where trees 
chance to become constellations,
where the bar-headed goose flies
past with the heart of a clock and

Zeus is a silver kite tethered
to Olympus by harp strings
trembling an offering. 

          Of bliss? To remember
the why of it all. 

Bliss is a body absconding
warp speed toward 
a dwarf star whispering,
Unsee the beheld.

My fall, well, yes,
those depths matter less.
What I learned by height—
that’s the story.

Iris? A flower? Part of the eye?

map edges blister
compass wasps
I love these nouns as verbs

ungold time — love how that sounds, but what does it mean to ungold something? to tarnish it? Looked up Ariadne — from Green mythology, gave Theseus a thread to help him survive the labyrinth, kill the Minotaur, known to some as goddess of weaving, also her diadem ends up in the sky as a constellation

light refracts in dialect only moths comprehend — I might want to use that — so good

a goose with the heart of a clock, to belong elemental

bliss
the why of it all
bliss is a body

Unsee the beheld — I want to devote some time to thinking through what this idea might mean to me

And here’s the poet’s expanation:

About this Poem

“‘Altitude’ reimagines the myth of Icarus not as a cautionary tale of hubris, but as a meditation on ecstatic pursuit, disobedience, and the search for transcendent knowledge. The speaker rejects Daedalus’s pragmatic warnings, drawn instead to a metaphysical journey—flying not for safety or ambition, but to answer an elemental, inner urge to transform, no matter the consequence.”

during the run

As I suffered through my run, when I wasn’t thinking about wanting to stop or how hot it was, I thought about the command, Unsee the Beheld. I held onto the thoughts and spoke them into my phone at the end of the run:

Unsee as different than not-seeing (which I ‘ve thought/written about before). Not seeing is a static thing; you just don’t see it. To unsee is more active and also suggests a process of unravelling which is where my vision is at.

A few minutes later in the walk, I thought about flipping the phrase to, behold the unseen.

after the run

I like thinking about to unsee as a verb, an act, a process, a type of prayer? Just as seeing is not a static thing, where you simply see, but a process of light and signals and filtering and guessing by the brain, unseeing is a process of slow (or sporadic) unravelling then adapting — a brain doing mysterious and magical things with the scrambled and limited data it receives, a mind developing new ways to witness/behold without stable and dependable eyes.

And now I’m thinking of unseeing as eroding/erosion and the creation of the gorge. Rock erosion occurs in 2 main ways at the Mississippi River Gorge: 1. soft sandstone slowly and gradually wears away as it encounters water and air and 2. this wearing away weakens the foundation for limestone until it breaks. My unseeing process could be similar: the slow and gradual dying/not working of cell cones until a final break and no central vision. Is this how it will happen? Maybe, but maybe not.

a volta

A few months ago, I briefly wrote about the volta. When? Just remembered: it was during my study of time and thinking about the cyclical time and turning while I was listening to the Byrds — to everything turn, turn, turn. This morning, reviewing a poem I posted on this day in 2022, I think I found a good example of it in Ada Limón’s poem, Calling Things What They Are. For much of the poem, she is writing about what a difference it makes to know the names of birds or trees and how she likes to call things in the natural world what they are. Then she ends the poem with this:

I like to call things as they are. Before, the only thing I was interested in was love, how it grips you, how it terrifies you, how it annihilates you, and resuscitates you. I didn’t know then that it wasn’t even love that I was interested in, but my own suffering. I thought suffering kept things interesting. How funny that I called it love and the whole time it was pain.

a thought on time from the novel. The Bear

I’m reading a beautiful novel, The Bear by Andrew Krivak. A bear and a young girl are discussing how all creatures can speak. Skeptical, the girl asks, What about the trees? After instructing her on how and where to listen to the trees the bear said,

the voices of the trees were the voice of the forest, and that when they spoke, they spole with such indifference to time that it would take the girl several moons to hear one of their conversations, the better part of one just to hear a single word.

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
84 degrees

Another anxiety-free bike ride, and no knee pain. Hooray! Hotter and harder on the way there. It felt like I was biking into some wind. The bike back was wonderful. A little cooler, the glow of a lower sun and my satisfied muscles. I thought about how I don’t ever want to take biking for granted. I never know when my last cone cells will go and I’m not sure what that will mean for biking. Will it be too scary and unsettling? I want to bike more this summer.

5 bike things, 5 swimming things

  1. bike: nearing lake nokomis I heard a siren, then saw an ambulance by the lake. Was it coming from the beach?
  2. bike: 3 or 4 kids yelling and running across the path toward the creek with inner tubes. A dad called out to one — not to caution or scold but to collect their glasses
  3. bike: a recumbent bike, slow and low to the ground
  4. bike: going slower so I could keep a good distance between me and a group of bikers up ahead. The last one in line was wearing a dark pink shirt
  5. bike: turning onto the part of the path that’s between hiawatha and the creek and looking down at a part of the creek that I don’t know very well
  6. swim: olive green water
  7. swim: waiting in the shallow water before it started, the kids were so LOUD — I flinched as they screamed near my ear
  8. swim: the visibility underwater was good — I saw a lot of pale legs kicking
  9. swim: clear enough that I could see how deep the water was as milfoil stretched up from the bottom — delightfully creepy!
  10. swim: my sparkle friends were joined by shafts of light

swim: 3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
84 degrees

Got to the lake early — a half hour before it started — to make sure I got a spot for my bike and my bag. I was hoping they’d start as early as they did on Tuesday. Nope, but still 5 minutes early. My left shoulder hurt a little at the beginning, but by the end it was okay. It wasn’t the easiest swim — I’m out of shape — but it was still amazing. I kept thinking about how I’ll feel after a couple of weeks of steady swimming: amazing.

At one point when I was ready to be done, I had a flash of a thought: what would happen if my body just shut down right here in the middle of the lake. No panic, just curiosity. At another point, I thought about unsee the beheld, both the unsee and beheld part. what was beheld? swimming, a practice in unseeing.

This just popped in my head: See no cola, Hear no cola, Drink uncola. That’s on my favorite sleeping bag from the 70s.

june 18/RUN

4.2 miles
minnehaha falls and back
72 degrees
dew point: 63

Went to bed early (before 10!) with the hopes of getting up early and running before it was too warm. Woke up at 7:30 and didn’t start running until almost 9. It was hot! Still, I did my 9/1, with only one extra break. A small victory: I didn’t fall apart after the extra break, even though I thought I might. I got right back on track and ran the rest until I reached 9 minutes. Wore my compression socks again today — they make a big difference.

10 Things

  1. a broken fence rail — I have been calling the wooden fence a split rail, but is it? It’s not a picket fence. It is 2 horizontal wooden slats, painted brown. Looked it up — ranch?*
  2. yellow caution tape blocking off the new trail-in-progress just past the double bridge
  3. someone at the playground, pushing their bike through the mulch or pebbles or whatever’s in the playground pit, making a scraping noise
  4. 2 people on the bridge overlooking the falls, holding a giant selfie stick
  5. the dirt trail leading into the woods near ford bridge, looking dark and mysterious and inviting
  6. the rush of the creek and the falls
  7. someone sitting at the bench above the edge of the world
  8. a voice below, on the winchell trail, commanding (or scolding) a dog
  9. a dozen roller skiers on the trail
  10. the coxswain’s voice below — rowers!

*Looked up what type of fencing Minneapolis Parks uses and found this in their latest planning proposal:

Fencing and Guardrails

  • Locate fencing and guardrails to protect park users from injury near steep bluffs, drop-offs along trails, overlooks, boardwalks, and bridges. They can also be used to protect pedestrians and bicyclists from conflicts with motor vehicles in certain situations.
  • Fencing and guardrail design and materials should be consistent throughout the park to convey a strong sense of park identity and character.
  • Fencing materials and design in high use areas such as along the parkways, urban parks, and other highly visible areas should be more formal. The existing black metal picket fencing along many portions of the park is a good example of this type of character.
  • Fencing in less formal and natural areas, such as along the Winchell
  • Trail, should use less formal fencing and guardrail materials and design character. Here, timber and chain link fencing may be more appropriate.
  • All proposed fencing and guardrails shall meet MPRB standards.

converting notes into poetry

Yesterday, during my On This Day practice, I came across a line from Dan Beachy-Quick that led me from his poem, This Nest, Swift Passerine, to Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal, which her brother, William Wadsworth, used in his poetry. I recall encountering D Wordsworth’s journal then, in 2023, and thinking I’d like to read more of it, but I was busy with some other project. Maybe I put it on my epic “To Do” list that I rarely return to.

I wanted to read more of DW’s journal because I’m fascinated by how writers might use their journals and observing-while-moving notes in their poetry.

I’m also thinking about how poets incorporate research into their poetry. Read this morning, in an interview with Kristin Dykstra, about her new poetry collection, Dissonance:

I’ve been interested in contemporary works that explore the use of research, which takes us outside our own individual points of view on the world. In creative works encompassing research, there’s a fundamental tension between one’s own perspectives and what we learn to see through other people.

Lines that Linger

In the amazing poem, “Lake Superior,” Lorine Niedecker condenses her 100+ pages of typed notes into a few dozen stanzas.

A few days ago, I read Kaveh Akbar’s “Love Poem with Tumor and Petrified Dog” and was delighted by how he incorporated “facts” about Pompeii into his poem.

I’d like to experiment with different ways to take my notes and research on the cultural and geological history of the gorge and put them into poems/creative writing. The wilder, stranger experiment, the better!

a few hours later: Rereading this last paragraph, I suddenly thought of Mathias Svalina’s Surreal Zillow tours, which I read about last November.

Here’s how the tours work (from my log entry, 18 nov 2024):

You show up at the appropriate time and place and look for a man with a bullhorn. “Because I’m a man who owns a bullhorn now,” Svalina says. “[Then] I’ll point to buildings and lie about them for 90 minutes.”

and part of its purpose:

“I’m particularly interested in civic history because of the ways that cities use, rewrite, and often weaponize their histories as promotional agents, or as ways of ignoring populations,” he explains. “So, I like the idea of inventing histories that could not have ever existed.”

I’m not interested in making up or twisting my research, but this popped into my head, and I wanted to remember it here.

soft vision

Just started listening to the novel, Havoc, which I’m really enjoying. The main character is an octogenarian living in a grand hotel during the pandemic in Cairo and causing chaos with her desire to “help” others. Early on, she describes the faded beauty of a grand hotel:

A bit of advice: if you fear mice, don’t peer too closely into the corners. I suggest walking around the hotel in a happy, glaucomal squint.

Havoc/ Christopher Bollen

june 17/RUNBIKESWIMBIKE

4 miles
river road, north/river road, south
67 degrees / dew point: 63

Started my run at 8:30, which was too late for how warm and humid it is. Even so, I felt strong and relaxed and confident that I could stick to my 9/1 plan and I did. As the runs get longer, I’m going to need to get up earlier. Chanted in triple berries — strawberry/blueberry/raspberry — then in other favorite triples — mystery history — then in triples that describe the world around me — worn dirt trail / old oak tree / cloaked green view / rushing cars

10 Things

  1. at least 2 roller skiers standing at the top of the franklin hill
  2. voices below — rowers!
  3. 2 minneapolis park trucks on the path, both hauling riding lawn mowers
  4. Mr. Morning!
  5. a big branch loaded with green leaves on the ground near the welcoming oaks, blocking a small section of the path
  6. 2 or 3 stones stacked on the ancient boulder
  7. the sliding bench was empty
  8. encountering Max, a big and gentle German Shepherd
  9. a mini-peloton on the road — a dozen or so bikes
  10. an older runner in bright orange compression socks standing in the middle of the walking path, gathering himself

I don’t remember thinking about much as I ran, other than that it was hot and that I knew I could keep going.

Yesterday, during my vision assessment, I mentioned reading about a way of training the eyes so that they could see outside of your blind spots. It was in a book by a famous author, but I couldn’t recall who. I knew they were from the 1900s and that they were male and I thought they were a philosopher, but I was drawing a blank on the name. At some point during the appointment, I was convinced it was Henry James. I was wrong. I looked it up today: Aldous Huxley and his book, The Art of Seeing. I wrote about it in this long on 13 sept 2020, including this quote from Huxley in the introduction:

Ever since ophthalmology became a science, its practitioners have been obsessively preoccupied with only one aspect of the total, complex process of seeing—the physiological. They have paid attention exclusively to eyes, not at all to the mind which makes use of the eyes to see with.

The Art of Seeing/ Aldous Huxley

How true is this assessment in 2025? Well, the study I am hopefully participating in is a collaboration between Ophthalmology and psychology at the U of M.

In the process of searching for the Huxley reference, I came across an article about low vision and reading. The specific ways that reading is difficult for me are different than this author, but the strange, and sometimes frustrating, sometimes delightful ways it (doesn’t) work resonate:

I try to figure out how apples connect to the topic, and how a noun just there might fit into the sentence, then give up and go back, to see the “i” that I missed when I first read “applies.” All those mistakes don’t happen at once. When my splotchy vision is not making me fail to grasp the point of an essay or fail to see the word “salt” in a recipe, it keeps me amused, keeps me aware of language itself. Who knew that “apples” is only one letter different from “applies”? Who could regret noticing that? 

As My Vision Deteriorates, Every Word Counts/ Alice Mattison

Reading more of the article, I find that her perspective on audiobooks resonates less:

Listening to an audiobook, I wouldn’t hear punctuation. True, an actor could produce the pauses, hesitations, and buildup that punctuation merely signals. But I like punctuation. I wouldn’t know whether the author had chosen a period or a semi-colon for the end of that main clause, wouldn’t know about em dashes, colons, parentheses, ellipses. Audiobooks are mediated. Another person would be present as I read. Worse, that person would have interpretive power, power over speed. Audiobooks happen in time, not space, like music or dance. Performance is indispensable but it isn’t the same as reading. 

My first reaction was to disagree with this assessment, but it has thinking more about the idea of an audiobook as performance. I like listening to a good audiobook actor. And I love listening to an author who can read their own book well, like Zadie Smith. So what? Does that mean I’m not reading, and do we need to gatekeeper what reading is? Now I’m wondering: what is reading?

Some thoughts about punctuation:

  • As I memorize poetry, I often struggle to write it down again later; I often mess up the punctuation. I memorize words, but rarely semi-colons or em dashes.
  • In Lucille Clifton’s rules for writing poetry, she suggests that a poet should write their lines in such a way that punctuation is never necessary — not sure where I stand on this
  • Isn’t the writer’s choice of punctuation a sort of mediation between reader and word?

bike: 8.7 miles
lake nokomis and back
78 degrees

Hooray for no problems on the bike! I could see well enough and I didn’t have to do any awkward passing. My left knee was a little stiff at the end, like it was 2 summers ago, but otherwise it was good. I liked biking to the lake before my swim, and biking back home after. Some things I remember: a line-up of traffic near the falls; kids playing in the creek; the pleasing curve of the new bike trail at lake hiawatha; the rush of water gushing out of the sewer pipe and into the ravine at 42nd; a surrey slightly off course; the bouncy stride of a runner.

swim: 2 loops
lake nokomis open swim
79 degrees

Open swim! A wonderful night for a swim. Not much wind, hardly any waves. I would have liked to do more than 2 loops but I didn’t want to push it and have a sore shoulder again. No problems going off course even though I could barely see the buoys. So little data, so much trust and belief in my ability to swim straight!

10 Things

  1. put my bag down under the lifeguard stand, next to some kid’s swim trunks that were swarming with gnats (gross!)
  2. milfoil reaching up from the bottom, thick and pale orange until it faded into the dark blue-green water
  3. cold water with pockets of warmer water
  4. baby bros (15 or 16? year-olds) playing football in the shallow water, cheering every time someone caught a pass or missed a pass
  5. the legs of another swimmer doing breaststroke, looking pale underwater
  6. bubbles! the translucent, almost white ones, that remind me of the bubbles in scooby doo
  7. my sparkle friends! the small glittering particles floating in the water
  8. open swim was set up a full 15 minutes early! the lifeguards have their shit together again this year
  9. the familiar form of the beach house dome, viewed mid-lake
  10. calling out to another swimmer — have fun! / you too!

A great swim. No deep thoughts or reciting water poems or noticing sounds or clouds or planes. As I get more fit, and spend more time in the water, these things will happen.

june 16/VISION TEST

This evening, I’ll do my first open swim at Cedar Lake. Now (10:45 am), I’m doing a close reading of a poem before I go for a vision test to see if I qualify for a study on new goggles that help people with central vision loss read (if I’m remembering this correctly; I was originally scheduled to do this test in mid-March, but they’ve had to reschedule it twice now). The goggles sound cool, and I appreciate their approach to vision loss — create tools to help instead of trying to “cure” someone, but I especially interested in having my eyes checked out. Will I find out anything new?

Back to reading my poem. It’s by Kaveh Akbar and is the poem of the day on poets.org.

Love Poem with Tumor and Petrified Dog/ Kaveh Akbar

There is a tumor in my sacroiliac joint  
and snowflakes in my coffee.  

I’m in Iowa with the cats 
and you’re in Pompeii. 

You send a video: lizards rushing into limestone 
which remind you of being a kid in Florida.  

In Florida we memorized sonnets 
while leaping around green anoles.  

I’ve forgotten the poems.  
Your black tights, even in that heat.  

Mostly that’s what I remember. 
It’s okay to say it straight.  

Like: I’m scared, still, 
that I might be dying.  

Pomegranates growing from Pompeiian ash,  
scandalizing propriety— 

you send a picture and I do not say, 
It just looks like a tree

or Another of God’s secrets 
wasted on me.  

Which part of the mind  
gets you to the soul? 

I am reading St. John of the Cross, 
a character you might’ve put in a poem: 

In the evening of life,
we will be judged on love alone. 

Some petrified dog. Table bread, 
a painted doorway.  

You’ve been with me forever. 
You know all my angels. 

How could I say no to you, 
taking off your earrings to kiss me? 

This first couplet! Starting with the tumor, and then the snowflakes in coffee. So many questions — snowflakes? is it winter? is he outside? are the actual snowflakes?

each couplet its own thing yet together they make a story

I love the brevity and the space — room to breathe and to think

anole: a type of green lizard

still: as in, motionless? frozen? and as in, I continue to be? I love playing with the different meanings of still. I could try doing a Jane Hirshfield assay about “still” or a poem like, Pine or To Cast

pomegranates in ash scandalizing propriety? Looked it up, and my best guess, thanks to AI, is that the scandal is over dating the eruption. People thought it was August, but the presence of pomegranates suggests later in the fall. Is that the reference?

“Which part of the mind gets you to the soul?” I love the inclusion of this question amidst the descriptions of their fear and what they’re reading and their recollections of their beloved

petrified dog? Had to look that one up too: Victim 8 — a dog chained to a pillar, trapped, suffocated, preserved

Searching for clues to some of these lines, I encountered a reference to a early version of pizza preserved in the ash, referred to as a Still Life, and it clicked: Akbar’s “still” — scared stiff? — is made metaphor in the preserving ash of Pompei. Wow! I love how what poets do with myths/facts/(his)story!

Just got back from my vision test to see if I’m a good fit for the study. I passed the first round and am a “very interesting candidate.” Nice. Apparently my vision is unusual in its fixation on the center. At one point I said, I’ve trained myself to not look away from the Void. Ha ha — what a poet-y thing to say. At the end, I asked if he thought I might be close to legally blind. He thought so and encouraged me to meet with my ophthalmologist to be tested and to fill out paperwork for disability benefits. This news doesn’t make me sad: strangely, I see it as validation or verification, and the tax breaks are significant.

A few other things: To determine if I was a good candidate, I had to take a cognitive test, which I’ve never done. What is the year? The season? Repeat these words after me: book pencil wristwatch. Take this piece of paper from me with your right hand and fold it in half, then put it on the floor. Spell world backwards. The last one: write a sentence on this piece of paper. My sentence: Tests make me nervous.

The main test I took was a Vision Field Test. The last time I took this test was in 2019. You put your chin on a chin rest, your forehead up against a bar, and look into a camera at a red circle in the center. With a clicker in your hand, click every time you see a light. Not too many clicks. At one point, my purple spinn-y friend — the floater in my eye that is neon violet and looks like a small ball with a feather attached that spins around — appeared. Hi friend! This test isn’t hard, just long: about 8 minutes per eye, and tiring — having to sit still, and stare at the same spot. Sitting there, I thought, I should write a poem about this: the sound of the clicking, the dark room, the red circle that was there, then wasn’t, then was again, my spinn-y friend, after the test seeing the image with so much black. Last time I took this test, I felt some anxiety about vision loss. This time: none. More curiosity and fascination.

Open swim cancelled.

Threat of severe weather. Bummer. Already, open swim has been cancelled 3 times. Oh well, the weather looks great for tomorrow night and not swimming tonight gives my shoulder one more day to rest up.

june 15/RUN

2.5 miles
2 trails
63 degrees
humidity: 87%

Sticky this morning, but no rain. Thought very briefly about stopping to walk after the first mile, but didn’t. Another mental victory. Ran south to the entrance of the winchell trail, then entered it. There are 2 sets of 3 or 4 steps but I never take them when I’m running. Instead, I run down the dirt beside them. Everything was dark green, except for the slits of the pale blue river through the trees. I heard some honking up ahead (geese) and voices down below (rowers?). In the opening stretch of the trail, the asphalt is cracked and sloped and on a steep, unfenced edge. Past the “edge of the world” it is in better condition. More level with less cracks and a black, wrought-iron fence to hold back the vines and trees.

Found this poem the other day. Great inspiration for my Haunts poems:

Possessed/ John Berryman

This afternoon, discomfortable dead
Drift into doorways, lounge, across the bridge, 
Whittling memory at the water’s edge, 
And watch. This is what you inherited. 

Random they are, but hairy, for they chafe
All in their eye, enlarging like a slide;
Spectral as men once met or crucified, 
And kind. Until the sun sets you are safe. 

A prey to your most awkward reflection, 
Loose-limbed before the fire you sit appalled. 
And think that by your error you have called
These to you. Look! the light will soon be gone. 

Excited see from the window the men fade 
In the twilight; reappear two doors down. 
Suppose them well acquainted with the town
Who built it. Do you fumble in the shade? 

The key was lost, remember, yesterday, 
Or stolen—undergraduates perhaps;
But all men are their colleagues, and eclipse
Very like dusk. It is too late to pray. 

There was a time crepuscular was mild, 
The hour for tea, acquaintances, and fall 
Away of all day’s difficulties, all 
Discouragement. Weep, you are not a child. 

The equine hour rears, no further friend, 
Intolerant, foam-lathered, pregnant with 
Mysterious grave watchers in their wrath
Let into tired Troy. You are near the end. 

Midsummer Common loses its last gold, 
And grey is there. The sun slants down behind 
A certain cinema, and the world is blind
But more dangerous. It is growing cold. 

Light all the lights, heap wood upon the fire
To banish shadow. Draw the curtains tight. 
But sightless eyes will lean through and wide night 
Darken this room of yours. As you desire. 

Think on your sins with all intensity. 
The men are on the stair, they will not wait. 
There is a paper-knife to penetrate
Heart & guilt together. Do it quickly.

june 14/RUN

6.1 miles
flats and back
55 degrees
drizzle

10 Things

  1. boom! crash! construction noises above me as I ran under the I-94 bridge
  2. voices cheering below, near the rowing club
  3. a soft mist
  4. beep beep beep — far ahead of me
  5. a chair set up behind a column at the base of the lake street bridge
  6. 2 people fishing in the flats
  7. the limestone slabs that were stacked in a way that looked like a person have been removed
  8. a pink and white kid’s bike propped up against the bottom of the franklin bridge
  9. an orange cone tucked into the bushes, mostly hidden from view
  10. water gushing out of the limestone in the flats

A great run! A steady 9/1, even up the franklin hill. A big mental victory! An average heart rate of 157. A big physical victory, too!

Returned from the run to get shocking news from Scott. Somebody impersonated a police officer then shot and killed the head of the Minnesota DFL and her husband in the early morning in their home. He shot another senator too and has not yet been caught. There’s a manhunt and a shelter in place for Brooklyn Park. Police are asking that people don’t attend the No Kings protest today or open their doors to any police officers.

june 13/RUN

3.1 miles
ford bridge turn around
58 degrees / damp, post-rain

Pre-run Sara

Friday the 13th! Tonight, Scott and I will watch the original movie. Today, I run between rain drops. No open swim last night or this morning because of rain. Ordinarily I’d be upset, but I overdid it on Tuesday’s first open swim and my left shoulder hurts. If there was open swim, I’d be tempted to do it, which might further injure my shoulder. Now I don’t have a choice. That’s good. Speaking of injuries, my left knee is a bit stiff and it feels like there’s some sort of swelling on the back. It doesn’t hurt too much, just feels tight and stiff. I don’t think it’s a big deal, so I’ll do a short run this afternoon. Post-run Sara, let me know how it goes!

Mid-run Sara

a spasm of sirens ringing across the river
the usual puddles to leap over
a chorus of hammers
dark green
rich brown
rusted red leaves
a new trail descending deeper into the gorge
empty benches
no walk breaks
a triple chant: history / mystery / first story / my story / her story

Post-run Sara

I’m happy to report that the run felt great and because I wore compression socks, my left knee and calf don’t hurt. Hooray! I also wore a different pair of shoes — did that help, too? The run seemed to also loosen up my left shoulder.

On my walk home, after the run, I recited Wallace Steven’s excellent vision poem, “Tattoo.” The light is like a spider. . . This led to more thoughts about light as an insect, or a spider, or a fish, or a tiny robot. Then I remembered the song in my new favorite musical, Maybe Happy Ending about dragonflies as little robots. Never fly away/little robot. I started imaging little robots of light helping me to see, and what that technology might look like.