Month: September 2026

sept 25/RUN

3 miles
trestle turn around
60 degrees / humidity: 89%

Back to sticky running this morning. Overcast, but humid and wet from an early morning rain. I wore my BRIGHT orange YWCA Tri shirt from 2013 and my BRIGHT yellow running shoes. I wonder, did I brighten the otherwise gloomy gorge for anyone? I’m continuing to do my 3/1 method. The first 3 felt good, the second 3 did not, then after that, they all felt about the same: not hard, but not effortless either. Lots of sweating. After climbing up from under the lake street bridge I saw my first “road closed for an event on oct 4” sign. That’s for the marathon! For the next mile, I had a big grin on my face. It’s coming!

Two days ago, I came across WS Merwin’s “The Light of September” in an log post and I decided I wanted to re-memorize it (I memorized it a few years ago). Then yesterday, I decided to re-memorize Diane Seuss’ “I Look Up From My Book at the World Through Reading Glasses.” Today, it was Jorie Graham’s “Still Life with Window and Fish.” As I ran, I recited the lines in my head: Down here this morning in my white kitchen along the slim body of the light . . . Such a wonderful poem that has so much to say about vision and light. As I was memorizing DS’s poem yesterday, I thought about how brilliant it is in describing my experience of seeing the world sometimes — the world, italicized/Douglas fir blurs into archetype. . .Then I thought about a new project: picking some of the favorite vision poems I’ve gathered by others and writing about how and why they resonate for me. Seuss and Graham would definitely be on that list, along with several Emily Dickinson poems.

10 Things

  1. a small pack of shirtless runners — I heard the loud slapping of their feet first, then saw them as they flew past me
  2. scuff scuff scuff — a runner in a BRIGHT yellow shirt, scuffing his feet on the path with every step — he was slow but had a fast cadence, so there were a lot of scuff noises
  3. a few more slashes of yellow, red — I think a few orange too
  4. the squeaky whirr of wheels on an orange motorized something — not a bike, not a scooter — it was orange and had 3 wheels and the old guy in an orange jacket riding it was moving fast
  5. the sliding bench was empty
  6. any view of the river, forgotten — was I able to see it, or was it blocked by leaves?
  7. a white sky
  8. no geese, no blue jays, no chickadees, one cheeseburger from a carolina wren
  9. cars driving on the river road in bursts — a line-up, then no cars, then a line-up again
  10. waving to Daddy Long Legs who was over on the bike path while I was on the walking path

haunt / overlook

Today, since I’m writing about the overlook — the ones by the gorge, the act of ignoring or passing by without noticing or forgetting — I decided to search for “overlook” on Poetry Daily (poems.com). Jackpot! A great poem by the wonderful Maggie Smith:

In Geologic Time, It Happened Just Seconds Ago/ Maggie Smith

Our honeymoon was a strand             
of scenic overlooks. I first wrote                            
strange—a strange of scenic

overlooks—my mistake, and strange             
enough was the desert penned                           
in red ink. The scene

was either Sedona or Mars. They say             
the iron in the rocks calls                           
to the iron in our blood,

so it tugs on us. It tugged. We stayed             
on Airport Mesa, where we called                           
the crowds drawn to sanguine

sunsets “tourists,” as if we weren’t,             
and where, each night, the Milky Way                           
made a mess of the sky.

Was I the only one who wanted             

to wipe its white smudge away,                           
to polish the night

black again? Our honeymoon             
was a stranded scene I overlooked.                           
We posed for photographs
\

we never took. I remember the moon             
framed above the landscape, looking                           
silvery as a tintype

taken in a modern-day ghost town.             
The last day, we reached the canyon                           
and saw where the river

had over millions of years chewed it down             
to bone, clear to the canyon’s                           
strange marrow, riven

into red, copper, and purple—bands             
like sunsets compressed and recorded                           
in rock. That view

remains. Our honeymoon was a strand,             
a strangeness, a look ahead. I wrote                           
only what I could see.

1 — look / scene (seen) / tourists (gawkers) / a blocked view (Milky Way) / photographs (staged looks) / a view (of the moon) framed / landscape (visible feature of an area of land) / looking like / saw / view remains / look ahead / could see

What a variety of uses of view/see/look here, related to vision! I’d like to try this out in my overlook poem — or, maybe the same approach (gathering and using a wide range of descriptions related to a concept) on my dirt path poem, which has two sections: desire and abandon

2 — overlook as view / overlook as not seeing

3 — geologic time / iron in rock connected to iron in body — references to Lorine Niedecker and “Lake Superior”?

4 — a beautiful description of the carving out of a canyon, both literal and figurative as what happened to a marriage years after the honeymoon

5 — so it tugs on us. It tugged. Love it!

sept 23/RUN

5.6 miles
above locks and dam / ford bridge / under lake street
54 degrees

The first mile was rough. My feet were sore. Mile 2 wasn’t that great either. But, by mile 3, I started to feel better. And by mile 4, I decided that instead of stopping at a certain distance, I’d stop at a certain time: an hour. This run gives me confidence for the marathon. I can remind myself that even if it feels hard in the first few miles, it starts to feel better around mile 4. Better = a little easier, more relaxed, my legs and lungs and arms in sync.

One of the goals for my run today was to visit a few overlooks that I might use in a poem tentatively titled, overlook. On my way back from the ford bridge, I stopped at Horace Cleveland Overlook and took some video. As I ran from there above the river, I started thinking about unofficial overlooks — like above the ravine or above the floodplain forest in the tunnel of trees. Suddenly it hit me: these unofficial overlooks are often overlooked because people aren’t giving them enough attention as they move through the gorge, or because they are hidden from our “normal” ways of looking — the river, the floodplain forest, the steps that wind down to the flats. I decided this poem should have both meanings of overlook — or, maybe even other meanings too, similar to one of Jane Hirshfield’s assays. I need to revisit some of her assay poems to figure out if they fit with what I’m trying to do.

10 Things

  1. a squirrel who had no fucks to give — didn’t even bother to be startled as i ran by
  2. white heat on the river’s surface — the sun bouncing off the scaled surface
  3. a group of bikers meeting up at the locks and dam no. 1 parking lot
  4. a red bag, under a tree, just below the ford bridge
  5. the river near the eastern edge, just off of the ford bridge, was a pale greenish blue
  6. the view of the east bank from the ford bridge: hints of reds and oranges in the trees
  7. a tall guy, running fast in bursts — doing strides? the first time I saw him stop, I heard him wheezing from his hard effort
  8. almost all of the floodplain forest is still green
  9. some little purple flowers on the edge of the trail — Siberian Squill? — so upright and softly colored, looking like little bouquets spread out along the trail
  10. while most of the benches were empty, more than usual were filled — mostly by a single person, but at one, two women were sitting and talking
Horace Cleveland Overlook / 23 sept 2026

Looked through past entries and found a definition for assay from 11 jan 2024:

definition of an assay

Assays began with a poem written after I’d reread Edgar Allan Poe’s stories while writing an essay on how hiddenness works in poems. Some of the qualities of essay exploration and prose step lingered in its music and mode of thinking. At the time, I was regularly seeing the journal Science. On the back would often be advertisements for half-million-dollar machines for performing assays. That word—close to essay and sharing its root in the idea of an attempt, a try—refers to discovering a thing’s nature by breaking it into its elemental parts. The poem became ‘Poe: An Assay.’ That approach to writing, of testing a subject for its discoverable parts, imaginative and factual, caught. I began writing others. ‘Judgment: An Assay.’ ‘Tears: An Assay.’ ‘And: An Assay.’” Jane Hirshfield

assay (def): the testing of a metal or ore to determine its ingredients and quality

Does this fit with what I’m trying to do? Not quite.

sept 20/RUN

20 miles
lake harriet and back
55 degrees
humidity: 91%

20 miles. For the first 10 miles, I listened to creek water and foot strikes and the rush of traffic — so many cars out there on a Sunday morning! For the second 10 miles, I put in a new playlist that I made yesterday, called 20 miler. I created it by looking through Apple Music playlists for the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s. I put it on shuffle. I recall that Tribe Called Quest and Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” helped me get through my tough moments.

I’m proud of myself for what I just accomplished. Not because it was particularly fast, although it was 16+ minutes faster than my 20 miles from 2024, but because I did it at all. When I woke up this morning, my left hip/IT band was sore. I decided I’d run to lake nokomis and around it, then do the franklin and ford loops for the rest of the distance. If, at some point, my hip felt too sore, I would be closer to home so if I cut some of the distance, I could get home easily. Maybe this plan would have worked, but I imagine it would have been too easy to decide my hip hurt too much and to stop.

This was the plan, but when I got to the creek, which had been almost completely dried up in my past runs, and saw (and heard!) that it was full because of recent rains, I decided I wanted to keep following the creek to see what it looked and sounded like on the way to lake harriet.

A little bit later, I might have turned around before reaching lake harriet, but when I got to the part of the trail that had been closed, it was open. So I decided to keep going. From there, I just kept going until I reached 10 miles, which was deep into the lake harriet trail. Then I took a short break and turned around and headed back.

On the way back, my knees were stiff and sore and my feet hurt. I wondered if I was pushing it too much and should stop — a brief thought: I could call FWA and have him pick me up. Then I wondered if I should just walk the rest of it, or at least the next mile. Instead, I switched to running for 90 seconds, walking for 30. And I just kept going.

When I got to mile 18, I thought I would have to run beyond the turn off to my house to get the full 20 miles. A flash — it’s okay if you only run 19; that’s good enough. But, I didn’t stop at 19. I kept moving, 90/30, until I reached 20.

Lots of fortitude practiced today, which makes me happy because building up my fortitude — not giving up when it’s hard, pushing past what I think I can do, just putting one foot in front of the other even when I think it’s impossible — is one of my top reasons I wanted to train for and run another marathon.

20 Things

  1. leaves: mostly green, but a scattering of yellow and red, some orange too
  2. crossing over the duck bridge and seeing all the water in the creek — no dirt bars or aquatic plants, just water
  3. the part of nokomis avenue that was closed off for road work is open again
  4. the giant images of monarch butterflies are still on the fence of the pickleball court
  5. a full house of pickleballers — a mixture of loud thwacks with cheering
  6. a spot on the trail, just past lake nokomis, that I’ve made note of before: wind rushing through leaves almost sounding like falling water
  7. stretch of the trail that follows the other side of the creek and goes under chicago was open again — hooray!
  8. part of the path and certain slats on the small wooden bridges were slick from friday’s and yesterday’s rain
  9. running under the freeway bridge, wondering if there were any bats up there today — a sudden flurry of movement, something too big to be a bat and gray swooping down and landing — a pigeon?
  10. the bronze bunny did not have a scarf or a garland or any decoration on it
  11. another section of the path is closed — the detour requires you to climb a steep hill then descend it a few minutes later — I walked up it, then ran down it
  12. crossing a bridge, looking down at the creek water as it rushed over a row of small boulders
  13. reaching lake harriet: crowded paths, mostly pedestrians several people wide
  14. a beautiful beach — the buoys are still in! — calm, blue water, an unbroken surface
  15. shshshshsh the feel and sound of feet running on loose dirt on the side of the trail
  16. running into wind on the way back
  17. as part of the detour, had to run on a section of the bike path where bikers can’t see well and often bike very fast — on the way back, noticed a dirt trail cutting through some grass on the hill — took it to avoid fast bikers
  18. darkish sky with wind, then bright sun, then dark sky again
  19. groups of people hiking on dirt trails beside the creek, between chicago and bloomington
  20. 2 dogs encountering each other near the mustache bridge — one of them big and excited, the dog’s owner, a guy who was big and looked strong, struggled to hold the dog back

It is now a few hours after I finished my run. I’m wiped out and sore, and relieved to be done. Time to taper! As they (pro runners) like to say: the hay is in the barn.

sept 17/RUN

7 miles
ford loop+
61 degrees / dew point: 59
drizzle, off and on

Moist. Humid air mixed with sweat mixed with rain-soaked bushes mixed with occasional drizzle. Overcast. Encountered several walkers with umbrellas or rain jackets. Ran past some geese, a few wild turkeys. Heard the bells of St. Thomas.

10 Wet Things

  1. my upper arm after brushing against wet leaves
  2. the sidewalk — a little slick
  3. puddles on the path, making visible cracks I might not have seen otherwise
  4. the surface of the river, crossing the ford bridge: scaled, gray
  5. shadow falls was falling vigorously
  6. the big fountain in front of a fancy house on the river road, bubbling
  7. my shirt, soaked at the top
  8. stopped at the water fountain near the skate park
  9. my pony-tail, dripping
  10. they’re doing work at the old steam plant/ Ford Area C — an orange something looking like a thick lane line in the water near shore, a big crane, yellow-vested workers all around

While working on a poem about Ford Area C and the abandoned power plant yesterday, I read about how Ford, which still owns this building/land, had to submit a plan for cleaning up the toxic dump that has been there for more than 80 years — is that what they’re doing down there, cleaning up? Something else they’ve already done is remove a small building up on the bluff, just off of the trail. Today I made that my turn around point (note to future Sara, if you’re planning to run 7 miles, this is about 1/2 mile short). I walked out near the edge and took a few pictures of the open view to the plant below, including this one:

above the power plant / 17 sept

Friends of the Mississippi River (FMR) put together a helpful timeline of Ford Area C. Here are a few key dates:

1945-1966 — Ford dumps waste solvents over the bluff and deposits barrels of paint waste onto the Mississippi River floodplain, creating what is eventually named “Area C.” (The primary manufacturing campus includes parcels “A” and “B.”)

1965-66 — Ford deposits large amounts of construction debris on top of the hazardous waste at Area C.

1979 — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with Ford’s permission, adds construction debris to the top of the Area C dump during nearby lock and dam reconstruction, making removal of the hazardous waste underneath more difficult. Ford is paid by the yard for the disposed-of waste.

Fall 2025 — Ford has submitted a draft cleanup plan (feasibility study) to the MPCA. The MPCA will hold a community meeting and seek public comments in January 2026 before selecting a cleanup alternative with Ford.

In January of 2026, the MPCA held public meetings to discuss Area C clean-up plans. I haven’t found much more information. Looking at the MPCA site for Ford Area C, I found a timeline that claims 2027 is when the clean-up will happen.

Returning to the MPCA site and their description of Ford Area C:

From approximately 1945 through the mid-1960s, Ford disposed of paint sludge and solvents used in automobile painting operations at the base of the bluff. Although the specific disposal practices are not known, it appears that liquid solvents may have been dumped over the edge of the bluff, while barrels of paint sludge were buried. Disposal of industrial waste stopped in about 1966. Ford also disposed of construction rubble, contaminated soil, scrap metal, and other types of debris at Area C.

During the reconstruction of Lock & Dam No. 1 in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers disposed of a large volume of construction rubble and sand on top of and surrounding the industrial waste. In the mid-1980s, Ford covered the top of the construction rubble pile with a paved parking lot. The city of Saint Paul placed additional rubble at Area C during reconstruction of Mississippi River Boulevard in the late 1980s.

Dumped over the edge of the bluff, buried in the ground, covered with rubble, sand, a parking lot.

sept 16/RUN

3.1 miles
2 trails+
61 degrees / humidity: 73%

I thought about doing my 10 mile run today but I wondered if it might be too much for my sore hip since I ran 5 miles yesterday. I decided to run a 5k instead, and, to make it more relaxed, to stop at the benches I’m writing about for my poem, “Haunt: the benches.”

It was a beautiful morning. Sun, light wind, good air quality, a few more red trees. Just before I started, I listened to the sharp thud of acorns hitting the asphalt. At the end of the next block, city workers were repairing the sewer: lots of orange vests and loud talking and trucks beeping and banging.

Running south, I stayed above on the paved trail near the road. At the Horace Cleveland Overlook, I turned down and entered the southern entrance of the Winchell Trail. The river was sparkling, the sewer pipes in the ravines were dripping, the cars were steadily heading north. Near 42nd street, I noticed that they had patched all the cracks on the trail that had been marked with orange paint last week — strips that looked like toilet paper criss-crossed the path, covering the patches.

the benches

1 — the bench made out of an ancient boulder

This was not one of the benches I was planning to write about, but as I ran near it, I realized I wanted to. The bench made by time and pressure. How long did it take to make it, I wonder. And, what type of rock is this dark gray/black boulder? Is it taconite (imported from up north) or limestone or what?

boulder as bench / above the oak savanna

2 — the WWDD bench (what would dow do — rachel dow)

The view in front of this bench is blocked by small trees, one of them a memorial tree for Rachel Dow. The bench is made from wooden slats, quite worn, and concrete studded with gravel.

3 — the bench at the edge of the world

In an early draft this morning, I wrote about standing beside this bench to look down at the trail below and out at the river, but that’s not quite true: I’m not standing beside it, I’m standing several feet in front of it. Running under this bench, on the edge of the world, I wondered if I should add an additional verse — I mention fall and winter; I could bring in spring or summer, too.

Yesterday, reading the latest issue of The Paris Review thanks to my local library, I discovered this wonderful poem by one of my favorite poets, Diane Seuss:

She is good at curving/ Diane Seuss

against the constellation
of lilies

of the valley, and good
at making a nest

where the watercress
meets the skirt

of the stream and hems
it, and in the green

where the deer dream.
They say she’s playing

dead but
she’s not playing or

if she’s playing she’s playing
living or something in between.

Oh, so good! The line breaks, the quiet rhymes, the idea of someone not playing dead but living.

added a few hours later: I almost forgot about something I wanted the mention — last night, during community band rehearsal, as we did a warm-up exercise with staccatoed quarter notes, the director told us to stop thinking about the notes and just thinking about the space in-between the notes. It reminded me of my poem, “Between Beats” and when I think about the space between foot strikes during my run, when I’m flying.

sept 15/RUN

5 miles
bottom of franklin hill and back
61 degrees / humidity: 73%

Warmer today, which meant more sweating and a little more effort. This week is the big one: 5, 10, and 20 milers. Mostly, I felt good. No kneecap slips today. At the beginning of the run, I noticed the wind rushing through the trees. In my head I recited, I am the wind and the wind is invisible. All the leaves tremble but I am invisible. Later I chanted, 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 / life life life death death death bliss bliss bliss breath breath breath.

10 Things

  1. fall is here, 1: streaks of red in the trees on the edge of the trail
  2. fall is here, 2: a stretch of grass carpeted with red and yellow and brown leaves
  3. a woman near the road down to minneapolis rowing club in a bright yellow vest
  4. cheeseburger cheeseburger — carolina wren
  5. wet and slightly slippery trails, caused by yesterday’s rain
  6. just north of the big crack by the trestle, more cracks returning, widening, spreading
  7. a startled squirrel — it was about to dart out, then decided so abruptly to reverse course that it jumped up to the side and did a frantic spin
  8. empty benches, including the sliding bench
  9. no more stacked slabs of stone looking like a sitting person under the franklin bridge
  10. I think I heard some rowers on the river, but didn’t see them

Listened to the cars and the birds as I ran north. Put in my “Hello, Goodbye” playlist for the last mile.

September is the month when 3 out of our 4 parents died: Scott’s dad on 1 sept 2023; Scott’s mom on 29 sept 2022; and my mom on 30 sept 2009. So, it’s fitting to post this beautiful poem halfway through September:

Not the Bread Machine, but the Space It Takes / Sara Rosenberg

For years it rested beneath the pantry’s
floating shelves, sap-sticky with spills:

hot honey and rice slipped from the bag.
Then, behind the giant soup pot I used only once,

to brine a turkey the way my mother used to
on my first Thanksgiving without her—Prussian blue

and dented, speckled like a bird egg. Later, I wedged it
beside the pasta maker and its many attachments,

another thing I never knew I wanted
until she gave it to me, as if to say I was worthy

of time-saving, of a homemade dough I didn’t have to knead.
For weeks, it sat in the box of waiting donations,

where each time I bent down to haul it away, a stone
fell down the back of my throat.

Crusted with the bread I cultivated, crumb
of wheat, of banana, of oatmeal, from when I lived

alone in the rat house behind the landlord’s five-bedroom,
pretending his black creek was my black creek,

that his chimney’s columns of smoke
were my columns of smoke. She showed up

at my door with a box of new cutlery, knives so clean
I saw my face in them, with new dish cloths I had never

thought to need. She set the appliance on the green
tile countertop like a bouquet of roses.

I heard it whir, warm with promise, loud as rain.
A memory so delicate it flakes in my hand.

So vivid in its conjuring, and that title! Wow.

sept 13/RUN

13.75 miles
franklin / ford / the confluence
53 degrees
cloudy, some drizzle

The weather was wonderfully cool, which made a big difference. Everything felt easier, and I felt stronger. My 3/1 plan was working well. It was great until my kneecap skipped (or slipped? or stuttered?) around mile 8. It didn’t slide out so far that I had to pop it back into my place (with my hand, or by walking up stairs), but it was enough to make my tendons angry and to shake my confidence. I stopped to walk briefly, then started again. Another stutter. For 2 or 3 seconds I panicked, then I started running, this time more deliberately, lifting my knees. No more stutters — at least, I think there were no more stutters. For the rest of the run, I was weary and distracted. But, I still did it, and I’m choosing to believe that the kneecap skips were an aberration, and I’m choosing to remember how good (relaxed, strong, steady, fast enough) I felt for the first half of the run.

I have two ideas about how to prevent the skips from happening again:

  • more stretching and warm-up before I begin, especially exercises to get my glutes firing
  • wear my compression socks

My route involved a figure 8 with the lake street, franklin, and ford bridges, then a (mostly) straight shot to the confluence and back. In the first hour, I saw (and heard the oars of) rowers on the river. Also encountered some sort of bike event — not a race, but a fun ride around the city. I wanted to ask someone what it was, but I didn’t want to stop. Just looked it up: St. Paul Classic Bike Tour. My route was part of the bike tour route — well, not exactly — I was on the path, they were on the road.

a few things overheard by bikers:

  1. one biker: look at the Halloween decorations! another: Halloween? Too soon!
  2. I forgot you went to River Falls (University of Wisconsin, River Falls)
  3. and she was completely naked, except for the towel!
  4. one biker: did you finish all of your projects at the cabin? another biker: nope
  5. I think I just tasted some rain drops! / the weatherman was wrong!
  6. oh, it’s so beautiful here (one biker to another, on the trail between hidden falls and the confluence)

13+ Things

  1. about a dozen wild turkeys spread out over the lawns of some big houses
  2. a dark sky, bright white bike lights cutting through
  3. cheers from people leaning over the franklin bridge for the rowers below — a race? not that I could find online
  4. cheeseburger cheeseburger — a carolina wren
  5. the sound of water falling fast out of a crack in the limestone
  6. stopping to fill my water at the monument — waiting in a short, fast line behind 2 other runners
  7. more fall color on the trees — red and yellow on the trees just above the railing near marshall
  8. at least one roller skier — click clack click clack of their poles
  9. the bike tour had a pit stop at the parking lot and overlook closest to the ford bridge — port a potties, dozens of bikers, music — as I passed by, one biker called out: have a great run! / thank you! have a great bike ride!
  10. a small building on the edge of the trail, part of the ford power plant, is gone — where and when did it go? a gap and a view that hadn’t been there before
  11. the voices of kids playing at a house across the road, hidden by big fir trees
  12. a short drizzle, both refreshing and chilly
  13. studying the river’s surface from the ford bridge: flat, smooth, a thin sliver of bright blue cutting through grayish-blue reflecting the clouds and the small bit of blue sky trying to peek through
  14. a woman emerging from the woods with a dog, her dog running hard into her knee, the woman staggering and calling out in pain — me: are you okay? her: yes, my dog ran into me

For most of the run (the first 12 miles), I listened to the bikers and the birds. For the last 2 miles, I put in my “Hello, Goodbye” playlist.

sept 12/RUN

3.1 miles
bottom of lock and dam no. 1
61 degrees / humidity: 65%

Ah, only 65% humidity! My legs and lungs could feel the difference. A beautiful, almost fall morning. Crowded trails — runners doing their final long runs for the marathon? Scott runs his 20 miler tomorrow; I’m a week behind, so I’ll run my next week. My goal is 11:30 – 12:00 minute per mile pace. So I’ll be out on the trails for 4 hours.

10 Things

  1. rowers! a coxswain calmly and clearly explaining to the rowers what they should do
  2. running below on the winchell trail, hearing 2 runners above me — a man and a woman, talking about how they were enjoying the run — good vibes, good conversation
  3. sparkling, burning water in front of me as I turned down to enter the winchell trail at the south end
  4. at the bottom of the lock and dam, stopping to admire the water — scaled, corrugated
  5. encountering a kind man on the hill — good morning! what a beautiful day! congratulations to you for getting out here and getting after it! / thank you!
  6. a voice, above, descending the hill from the ford bridge, talking to someone
  7. that voice, a few minutes later, a solitary runner’s, talking non-stop on a blue-tooth to someone as she ran
  8. a darting squirrel, almost running right in front of me
  9. on the part of the path at the edge of the world, hearing water trickling out of the pipe in the ravine
  10. all green leaves, no yellow or orange or red yet on this stretch

As I ran, I thought about a poem I was working on before my run, Haunt: the Benches. I want to write about 3 of my favorite benches, but which ones? Before the run, I knew 2 of them: the sliding bench and the bench above the edge of the world. As I ran past the Rachel Dow Memorial Bench, I realized I should write about it. Of course! Thinking more about the bench, some words: bench, not as place to sit, but frame — framing of place, of view — the invitation (or suggestion or expectation): look here, at this spot, we (the placers of the bench) have decided this is what is worth noticing — And now, as I write this, I’m thinking about how some of the benches have been maintained, their views kept unobstructed, and some have not.

marathon mantras

Last night, or early this morning, in one of several wake-ups, I thought about how I should have a mantra or mantras or a chanting practice (triple berries?) for the marathon. Something to work on — something I should have worked on earlier, but this marathon build has been strange. Wildfire smoke, allergies, extreme heat, sickness, and shoe and foot problems have caused me to always feel like I’m behind. The other day I said to Scott, I already know I want to run another marathon so I can have a better, more enoyable/consistent, build.

Some lines of poetry that have been helpful in the past: ED’s lines from “‘Tis So Much Joy”:

Life is but Life! And Death, but Death!
Bliss is, but Bliss, and Breath but Breath!

On March 10, 2022, on my run and in the log, I experimented with fitting these lines to my breathing/running:

1

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

2

Life xxx
Life xxx
Life xxx
Life xxx

3

(Or, like “The Safety Dance”)

Life life life life
Death death death death
Bliss bliss bliss bliss
Breath breath breath breath

Reading the entire poem again, I’m thinking I should try memorizing all of it to recite in my head:

Tis so much joy! ‘Tis so much joy! / Emily Dickinson

Tis so much joy! ‘Tis so much joy!If I should fail, what poverty!
And yet, as poor as I,
Have ventured all upon a throw!
Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so –
This side the Victory!

Life is but Life! And Death, but Death!
Bliss is, but Bliss, and Breath but Breath!
And if indeed I fail,
At least, to know the worst, is sweet!
Defeat means nothing but Defeat,
No drearier, can befall!

And if I gain! Oh Gun at Sea!
Oh Bells, that in the steeples be!
At first, repeat it slow!
For Heaven is a different thing,
Conjectured, and waked sudden in –
And might extinguish me!

sept 10/RUN

8.75 miles
the confluence and back
59 degrees / humidity: 86%
100% sun

Cooler, but still warm because of humidity and sun. Only a few minutes in, my face was dripping with sweat and the top of my shirt was soaked. I need some new running shirts that aren’t light green or any other light color that so easily shows sweat. The first mile wasn’t easy — my feet/stride felt awkward and my legs were sore — but I reminded myself that it would get easier once I warmed up and that I could run almost 9 miles. It worked! I just kept going — 3 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking — and, at some point, it wasn’t as hard.

I tried something new: miles 1-4 — 3/1, miles 5-7 — 2 m/45 s, mile 7 — 90s/30s, mile 8+ — 3/1. I was curious which of these ratios might work best (best = easiest or fastest or lowest heart rate). The verdict: 3/1 was the best. 2/45 was too hard to keep track of and 90/30 elevated my heart rate the most.

For the first half of the run, I listened to the cars and the falls and the birds. For the second half, my “Hello, Goodbye” playlist.

10 Things

  1. middle schoolers walking to school, 1: scuff scuff scuff — a boy in shorts, socks, and slides scuffing his feet as he walked towards me
  2. middle schoolers walking to school, 2: 3 girls, dressed almost identically in white t-shirts and sweatpants — very polite, moving over to give me space — after they passed, a cloud of a scent — sweet, artificial, a perfume that reminded me of pink bubble-gum
  3. car after car after car passing beside me on the river road
  4. empty parking lots at the overlooks
  5. the sound of a frisbee hitting a chainlink net — someone playing frisbee golf in wabun
  6. ford bridge view, south: calm, flat water in several versions of blue
  7. hidden falls falling softly, steadily
  8. a new water fountain at the confluence that fills water bottles fast!
  9. empty benches — no one sitting at my new favorite bench just above the dog park
  10. ford bridge view, north: a small motor boat heading south to the lock and dam — a few seconds later I think I heard the bell at the lock that signaled it was being filled up with water so the boat could enter

A good run. I ran marathon race pace. My left knee was sore afterwards, but otherwise, I felt like I could keep running.

Sometime during the run, I started thinking about my Girl Ghost Gorge manuscript. First, I thought about one of the poems I’m working on, Here, We Speak Void, and how the form for it should be small stanzas surrounded by lots of space — maybe the different stanzas, which are different understandings/examples of Void, would be on different pages. This thought led to more thoughts about the whole collection. In addition to being about a girl, a ghost, a gorge, it’s about rock and river and air. Air = lots of empty or open space on the page, Water = words flowing freely, steadily.

we speak in Void

I found these thoughts yesterday and want to condense them into part of my poem. Today’s task, I think.

Gabbert suggests that the frustration of incoherence, mystery, not being able to make sense of something is alluring, erotic. It’s why many are drawn to poetry — to slow down, notice, get the chance to dwell in the unknown. My perspective is slightly different. I don’t need to be encouraged to slow down or given the chance to embrace incoherence, resist common sense. Because of failing vision and my overworked brain, I am already slow. Much of what I see is incoherent — or never quite coherent. Common sense ideas of how we see or how to be in the world have already been upended for me. I see poetry, and its way of navigating or negotiating or communicating/finding meaning not as desirable, but as necessary, practical, useful, a way to be that speaks to where I already am.

log entry from 29 march 2023

Something similar to, not familiar language made strange, but strange language made familiar. I like the word, familiar — a meaning for knowing to put beside, or replace, mastering or (fully) understanding. And now I’m thinking about becoming accustomed — We grow accustomed to the Dark (ED).

sept 9/RUN

3.25 miles
trestle turn around
79 degrees

Afternoon run, in bright sun. Too hot. I’m ready for fall and cooler air! My legs felt a bit strange and tired — how much of it was the effects of the 18 mile run on Sunday and how much was the hot sun? On the way to the trestle, I noticed someone sitting on the sliding bench. By the time I returned, they had left. I heard voices below the trestle, then a flash of movement off to the side. No view of the river. Still too much green. I don’t remember thinking about anything except that I was hot and this run was difficult.

image of the day: a butterfly and their shadow

Even though it was hot and the run was hard, I’m still glad I got outside and ran above the gorge. If I hadn’t gone, I would have missed beholding the monarch butterfly that fluttered beside me. At first, I only saw the actual butterfly rising and falling and bouncing all around. Then, I noticed their shadow. A ball of dark gray on the sunlit trail. It almost looked like a little ball and it felt more solid — in its dark circular form — than the actual butterfly and its slight feather form. So cool!

Looking through my notes from an oct 2025 Girl Ghost Gorge document, and I found these lines:

her concern
was the edge
and the making
of a form
out of the
edgelessness
that dwells be-
yond that edge

These lines, written by me, reminded me of some lines from AR Ammons in garbage that I found in another GGG document:

one thinks, slapping down the lines, making time
with eternity, one will thrive beyond the brink but

beyond the brink is no recollection but a wide
giving way into silver that filters farther away

into nothing

I took these lines and put them into my breathing

beyond the
brink, a
wide giving
way in
to silver
filtered
farther a
way into
nothing 

The edge I am referring to is not the edge of life (death), but the edge of the bluff. And, beyond that edge is not a silvery nothing, but a river, floodplain forests, another edge: a gorge. And, the gorge, I thought as I read the lines, is not a formless nothing, but a container, a bowl. I remembered that Jane Hirshfield wrote a poem about a bowl.

The Bowl/ Jane Hirshfield

If meat is put into the bowl, meat is eaten.

If rice is put into the bowl, it may be cooked.

If a shoe is put into the bowl,

the leather is chewed and chewed over,

a sentence that cannot be taken in or forgotten.

A day, if a day could feel, must feel like a bowl.

Wars, loves, trucks, betrayals, kindness,

it eats them.

Then the next day comes, spotless and hungry.

The bowl cannot be thrown away.

It cannot be broken.

It is calm, uneclipsable, rindless,

and, big though it seems, fits exactly in two human hands.

Hands with ten fingers,

fifty-four bones,

capacities strange to us almost past measure.

Scented—as the curve of the bowl is—

with cardamom, star anise, long pepper, cinnamon, hyssop.

—2014

sept 8/RECOVERY

Usually, I wouldn’t post about a routine long run recovery day, but I decided to today because I want to archive a few things for future Sara. The most important thing: the Purkinje Tree. It’s an entoptic phenomenon (visual effect whose source is in the human eye itself — as opposed to optical illusions, whose source is in the visual system) in which a person perceives the shadow of their own blood vessels. Purkinje is for the Czech scientist who discovered them, tree is because the shadows look like branches of a tree (What is the Purkinje Tree?).

With my damaged/diminished cone cells can I see a Purkinje tree? Found a YouTube short with instructions and yes, I could see it, but not nearly as clearly as the image in the video. Mine was more web than tree.

I found out about this tree because I was googling, too broadly, about the inverted tree that was used to explain vision to elementary school kids when I was a kid in the early 80s. I was googling it because I’m working on a poem that includes some lines about trees leaving my macula, and my central vision turning from forest to meadow.

I found this fragment of a poem I started working on last year:

just as I started to type the fragment, I noticed movement outside my window: a rafter of turkeys! 6 wild turkeys walking through my front yard!

as the trees
within my
macula
disappear
my forest
fields and
meadows

pur KIN jee — pronunciation

I’m also interested in this tree because of a call for submissions from the journal 3 Sisters that I read yesterday:

For our second issue, 3 Sisters invites work in conversation with the ideas of branches, branching, and brachial systems. This includes but is not limited to work involving: trees, olive branches (reconciliations, peace offerings), fruit (pawpaw and others), roots, ramus, trunks, leaves, alternate timelines, futures, choice, bifurcation, trifurcation, tributaries, distributaries, contingencies, permutations, confluence, estuary, forking paths, sistering (a process in architecture, of adding additional beams to strengthen an existing structure), scaffolding, limbs/appendages, innervation, veins, bodily systems, plexus, breath, fractures, fractals, nudibranchs, seeds, germination, propagation, mutation, symbiosis, proliferation, decussation, divergence, inheritance, descendants, antecedents, and genealogy.

Call for Submissions / 3 Sisters

I love this call! I have several poems (in varying degrees of completion) that I can imagine fitting with this theme. I think I’ll try to use their language as inspiration for my poems. Submissions are due by October 15th. They’re open to lots of different types of writing. I’m thinking I might be able to create a visual art/hybrid piece in the form of my HOLE project. https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/tarot

We accept work from all genres, including but not limited to fiction, non-fiction, poetry, art, mixed media, essay, video pieces, computational work, audio offerings, objects, and more. We are especially interested in hybrid works, work that falls in between genres, and pieces that are not easily categorized. We delight in art that is structurally unconventional, fragmentary, elliptical, or otherwise weird and surprising. As an online publication we are excited to showcase works that utilize the digital format in unique ways.

Fun!

In running-related news: it’s subluxation season. No big slides of my kneecaps, just slight shifts that make my tendons/ligaments angry. Today’s slide happened when I stepped off the top stair and turned in the upstairs hallway. My kneecap stuttered. About thirty minutes later, my right knee felt a little sore, a little stiff, a little swollen. No jerky, restless movement, no warning that my kneecap might shift. I had that I’m-walking-on-icy-sidewalk-and-might-fall-at-any-time feeling. A patellar subluxation is what ended my marathon dream in 2017. Back then, I had no idea what was happening or how to limit the damage. Now I do. I told Scott that I should write Careful! on one hand and Kneecap! on the other to remind me to be vigilant.

sept 7/RUN

18 miles
lake harriet bandshell and back
67 degrees / humidity: 92%

That was hard. Like most of the runs in this marathon build, hot and humid. Lots of sweating. Near the end of hour 2, I looked down and noticed that my shirt was drenched. The first half felt mostly good: 3 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking, over and over. The second half was more difficult. I switched to 90 seconds of running and 30 seconds of walking and did 10 sets before I took a slightly longer walk break.

18 Things

  1. past lake nokomis, on the creek path, the wind passing through the trees, sounding like water — no specific memory, but a reminder of the farm and how I would often hear that sound there
  2. cracked asphalt on the creek path — marked with orange paint, some of the paint was zigzagged and some of it was loops, looking almost like flower petals
  3. signs on the pickle ball fence: 2 giant monarch butterflies for the monarch butterfly festival — is that today? no, I checked, it’s 12 sept
  4. a real monarch butterfly, fluttering through the trees next to the path
  5. just after mile 1: a shirtless runner, pushing a strollers and holding onto a dog’s leash — talking to the kid he was pushing and/or someone on the phone — at one point he called out, GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE! did he see a turkey, or were he and his kid just remembering another time when they saw/heard a turkey
  6. the dog was a beautiful golden retriever — not light golden fur, but dark, like copper — and was also very graceful and relaxed as they ran
  7. an e-bike blasting “Let it Be” from their radio — the voices were clear until the bike passed, then distorted from the doppler effect
  8. the creek continues to be very low, a lot more mud and dirt showing than normal
  9. a mom on one bike, her very young daughter on another, carefully crossing the road and passing by an older man in a recumbent bike — he greeted them and called out to the girl with an encouraging, hey!
  10. reaching the bandshell at lake harriet, looking for a water fountain, encountering about 50 people doing yoga on yoga mats, facing the lake — what an image! I think I heard to woman leading them say something about gratitude — wow, I looked it up and they had free yoga EVERY DAY this summer at lake harriet! today was the last day — I wish I would have known; I would have gone at least once
  11. windy at lake harriet, I watched/listened to the water lapping the shore — I briefly thought about taking a 5 or 10 minute break to sit on the beach and be with the water, but decided it might be too hard to start up again
  12. what a crowded path at harriet! too many people taking up too much space, making it hard for me to run easily
  13. a group of adults gathered around a little girl, laughing (not at, but with the girl) and calling out, oh, her face, look at that face! not sure what was happening
  14. 2 bikers, one of them explaining to the other that they were redoing a bridge — it’s going to be really cool!
  15. slowing down to let a faster runner pass me — good morning! / good morning!
  16. a few honks, up in the air, geese far off somewhere
  17. stopping at the back of the nokomis rec center to refill my water bottle with the jet-powered bottler filler, noticing a group of 6 or so older people standing around — from what I heard, I think they were about to rehearse a song they were planning to sing — I left before they started
  18. two school gardens, one at Hiawatha, one at Howe, spread over several big planters, looking abundant and desperate for water

That run was not easy. My quads and hips and, occasionally my knees, hurt, so did my left ankle. And everything was sore by the end. I was slow and walked way too much for the last 4 miles. But, I did it. I was out there moving for 18 miles, and I was able to be on a trail that I’m rarely on these days. And I got to run all the way to lake harriet. I didn’t have to go to the bathroom. I didn’t have any terrible cramps. And, any negative thoughts I had (this is too hard or how will I be able to run a marathon in 4 weeks) didn’t last long. Victory!

For the first 14 miles, I listened to water and wind through trees and cars moving and dogs barking and some dad yelling out, gobble gobble gobble. For the last 4 miles, I put in headphones and listened to my “Remember to Forget” playlist.

sept 6/REST

Today I was supposed to run my 18 miler, but yesterday I woke up to an angry right knee. I think my kneecap shifted and the ligaments around it are a bit inflamed. This morning, my knee is still sore, so I’m postponing the run until tomorrow. Nothing too worrisome, as long as I take it seriously and rest, which I am. Today, I RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevate). Tomorrow, an 18 mile run.

Also, today, I’m writing more poems for Girl Ghose Gorge. First up, Haunts: Lock and Dam no. 1. I decided to look up the Ford power plant because I recently hiked by it and because I’ve mentioned it in an early draft of the poem. I found this video that provides incredible footage of the interior of the steam plant. This plant shut down in 2011 and, even though it’s fenced off, urban explorers, like the creators of this video, frequently visit it.

note: skip the 1.5 min intro and the annoying voiceover

themes: abandoned industry; urban explorers (a form of ghost, often invisible/hidden, haunting certain places, dwelling in the dark edges); a river returning (flooded basements). Mentioned in the comments and a vivid image remembered by me as K and I hiked up the steep road: the vacant parking lot halfway up the road — cracked asphalt, weeds/plants growing through the cracks, several feet high).

Another element: the future of the locks and dam no. 1 (and the 2 other lock and dams in Minneapolis)– it’s currently being studied by the Army Corps of Engineers, who own it, to determine 1 of 3 futures: the Army Corps continues to own and operate it; they sell it to a local, state, or private entity; or they dismantle the lock and dam and let the river flow freely. A report will be released for public review in the spring of 2027. In July, 2026, MPR reported on the uncertain future of the locks and dams: What would removing twin cities locks and dams mean for the Mississippi River?

The report says removing the locks and dams could reshape how people experience the Mississippi in the Twin Cities, with places to explore, hike, fish and bird watch. It also could offer an opportunity to reconnect with sacred Dakota places along the river.

Federal land around the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam is being restored by a Dakota-led nonprofit, Owámniyomni Okhódayapi. The organization plans to turn the site into a place of healing, restoration and connection.

Down river, the Wakaŋ Tipi Center, a 27-acre Native-led cultural and environmental interpretive center, recently opened on the Mississippi River in St. Paul. 

What would removing twin cities locks and dams mean for the Mississippi River?

Here’s an ending line that I’d like to think about: removing the dams could take 10-20 years.

The MPR article lists ecological, recreational, economic, and cultural/spiritual reasons. I’m reminded of past park plans I’ve read and the shifting perspectives on what matters most and how to pitch decisions to the public. I’d like to think about this some more and possibly use it a poem I’m thinking of writing that uses text from different documents about managing the park (regional/national).

While exploring resources about the river, I came across a reference to PUBLIC LAW 100–696, November 18, 1988. It’s the establishing by Congress of

(1) The Mississippi River Corridor within the Saint Paul-Minneapolis Metropolitan Area represents a nationally significant historical, recreational, scenic, cultural, natural, economic, and scientific resource.

(2) TThere is a national interest in the preservation, protectionand enhancement of these resources for the benefit of the people of the United States.

source

key language:

preservation, enhancement, enjoyment, and utilization of the nationally significant resources of the Mississippi River Corridor / to protect, preserve and enhance the significant values of the waters and land / establish manage enforce

What about PUBLIC LAW 100–696 as the title of a poem?

It’s 5:31 pm: My knee seems somewhat better. I’ve iced it twice. It is still a little angry. I can’t decide if the kneecap is continuing to shift and agitate it, or if the area around the knee feels tight/inflamed because of an initial shift. My current thought is, whatever has happened, I should be okay to run tomorrow morning.

sept 4/RUN

5.7 miles
ford loop
74 degrees
humidity: 92% / dew point: 72

No sun until mile 4, humidity’s haze instead. The air, so thick! From the beginning, it felt like a steam bath and, when I reached the lake street bridge, it looked like one too. Running over it, my face was damp — was it sweat or the liquid air? I’m not sure.

Other than one longer walk break on ford bridge, I stayed steady with 3 minutes of running/1 minute of walking. Sometime during the run, it seemed to click. Even though it was uncomfortably humid, the run wasn’t that hard. A nice confidence boost.

10 Things

  1. river surface: corrugated — blue-gray, small ridges, a streak in the middle — the wake of boat?
  2. bright pink graffiti on the sidewalk on the bridge
  3. a new water fountain at the monument, with a fast-filling bottle station — excellent!
  4. shadow falls, falling, soft but insistent
  5. the jangling of a dog collar somewhere nearby
  6. feeling like fall, 1: piles of leaves on the edges of the paved trail
  7. feeling like fall, 2: even more red leaves sprinkled throughout the tree line
  8. several benches, occupied, each one with only one person
  9. sun and blue sky as I ran over ford bridge
  10. laughing kids on a school playground

On the Ford bridge, I stopped for a few minutes to admire the view upstream and to take a few pictures:

mississippi river looking north / blue sky / haze / blue water
ford bridge railing / 4 sept 2026

sept 3/RUN

4.25 miles
minnehaha falls and back
78 degrees / dew point: 71

A recent refrain: hot, hot, so hot! I thought about running 10 miles, but when I couldn’t start my run until after 9, I decided 4+ miles would be enough. Tomorrow I’ll run to my new favorite bench which is about 7 miles there and back, so my total for this week of marathon prep will be fine. (5 on tues, 4.25 on thurs, 7+ on fri, 18 on sun). Yesterday, Scott and I spent about 8 hours at the fair — lots of time on feet. Can I count that as marathon training?

10 Things

  1. Morning Sara! / Oh, hi! good morning Dave!
  2. running beside a monarch for a few seconds — a splotch of beautiful orange at eye level — I thought about mom and how much she loved monarchs
  3. sun, then clouds, then sun again
  4. brittle, brown grass
  5. a few more red leaves, a yellowed tree — were the leaves on it changing for fall or dead?
  6. minnehaha creek above the falls looked still
  7. the creek water falling over the ledge, subdued and diminished
  8. the water at the water fountain on the edge of the park was unpleasantly warm
  9. one roller skier — click clack click clack
  10. the water at the fountain at the 36th parking lot was cool

Before I got too hot, I thought about looping around the falls an extra time or two to add distance. I made note of the distance: .7 miles. I can imagine a run where I do 1/2 mile run/.2 mile walk loops.

For the first half of my run, I didn’t listen to music, for the second half, I put in my headphones and listened to an old playlist, augustrun — “9 to 5”; “Misery Business”: “I’m Still Standing”; and “Can’t Touch This”.

Back to the fair: As we do every year, Scott and I waled around the fine arts building. And, as always, it was inspiring. There are some amazing artists in Minnesota. Scott took pictures of 2 textile/fiber art pieces that I particularly liked. One is inspiring for my HOLE project, the other for my gathering of plastic:

1 — Fireweed and Sky / Therese Zemlin / hand-cut and hand-woven digital prints o on paper (see also the description in her Instagram post)

fireweed and sky / a weaving of thin strips of paper with words printed on them

I love this idea of weaving words! It looks like something fun to try. I looked up the artist, Theresa Zemlin, and jackpot! She has a wonderful site and many more inspiring pieces in her gallery! The piece at the fair is part of a larger collection she has titled, Woven Works:

My work has evolved from weaving fabric on floor looms, to Eva Hesse-inspired mixed-media, to welding life-size steel and paper pulp sculptures, to the physical manipulation of photo-based inkjet prints on paper. Inspiration for my work has always been rooted in the tactile, the language of materials and process, and finding my way to something compelling through trial, error, and investigation. Combining photo-based inkjet prints, text from naturalists and philosophers, and traditional weaving drafts has resulted in modes of thinking, responding, and assembling that are new and familiar in terms of chance juxtapositions and relationships between pattern, structure, text, and image.

Woven Works/ Theresa Zemlin

Oh, I’m excited to give more time to her work and play around with some of the ideas!

further exploration: Listen to this podcast with Theresa Zemlin

2 — Once There Were Green Fields / Erik Jon Olson / quilted plastic waste

Once There Were Green Fields
once there were green fields, close-up

Erik Jon Olson has a wonderful website, too. Here’s what he writes on his artist statement:

My art practice exists at the intersection of material experimentation, environmental critique, and contemporary craft. Working primarily with single-use plastic waste that I layer, quilt, reconstruct and then stitch into large-scale compositions, I transform one of the main pollutants of our time into an expressive visual language. My work extends beyond the simple repurposing of found materials; it functions as an investigation into the cultural, ecological, and psychological consequences of contemporary consumption.
… The visual seduction of my compositions—their vibrant color, intricate patterning, and tactile surfaces—creates an intentional tension between attraction and repulsion. From a distance, the works evoke traditions of abstraction, quilting, and graphic design; upon closer examination, viewers encounter the unsettling reality of consumer waste embedded within the aesthetic experience. This dynamic compels viewers to confront uncomfortable truths through the language of visual pleasure.

Erik Jon Olson Artist Statement

I looked at his list of exhibits and he has a solo show going on right now at a church a few miles from my house. Nice!

David Bowie!

While writing this entry, I’ve been listening to David Bowie’s album, The Man Who Sold the World. I was struck by these lyrics from “All the Madmen”:

Day after day
They send my friends away
To mansions cold and grey
To the far side of town
Where the thin men stalk the streets
While the saints stay underground.

Wow, this song! Mansions cold and gray, the saints underground. Listening to another song on the album, “After All,” I looked it up and saw a reference to Nietzsche’s influence on Bowie, which led me to a review of a new book about Bowie and 6 key philosophers, including Nietszche: We’re Nobody’s Children. So far, I haven’t had any luck finding this book at a local library, or any samples of it online, but I’ll keep looking.

sept 1/RUN

5 miles
minnehaha falls+
70 degrees
humidity: 82%

Too warm this morning! Sun and humidity and sweat. Tried out my new Saucony Rides. No problems, so I’m optimistic they’ll be good for the marathon. Tried something new: 1 mile run/3 min walk + 2 x 1 mile/2 min walk + 3 x .5 mile/2 min walk. I liked it; I’ll have to try it again.

10 Things

  1. empty benches
  2. a recumbent bike, speeding past me — too close
  3. a few more red leaves on the bushes near the trail
  4. a large group of older, (all?) white people standing above the falls, listening to a guide tell the history of the falls
  5. the faint, fake sound of the light rail bells ringing as it neared an intersection
  6. veteran’s bridge is completely blocked with chain link
  7. a man sitting at a picnic table near John Steven’s house
  8. rushing water as it tumbled over the limestone ledge
  9. a trilling bird
  10. the sound of bike shoes clipping into pedals behind me — sharp, quick, satisfying

Randomly encountered a great interview with many wonderful passages, including this:

There’s also this pressure, I feel, and perhaps this is just an internal pressure I felt, to write about one’s grief from a cold remove. As I was writing in London, I was just telling myself, if I ever write a book about this, it must be conveyed how it is right now: the extreme absolute end of ecstasy and nothing more or less. I made it my imperative: you will be in the heart of it with me, and you, the reader, either stay or leave, and I don’t care what you do.

Interview with Temperance Aghamohammadi

And this:

For me, when we speak of divinity, it is that external sense of transit, trying to move from this realm to another, or to even peer into the other and recover something. But it’s also about puncturing something within oneself to get to that brink, look over into the chasm, and see what’s there.

Interview with Temperance Aghamohammadi

transit / move from one realm to another / look over into the chasm / a puncture

Here I’m thinking about moving around the gorge, and looking/hearing/feeling the chasm/gap between shores, between real/imagined, girl/ghost, daughter/mother, here/there (or, not here). I’m also thinking about that puncture as the wearing down/erosion/leaking/a rent in the veil (see MO Leaf and the Cloud)

Swimming One Day in August, update: Last week, after open swim season ended, I tried to continue accumulating minutes for my 24 hours of swimming, but I felt stuffed up and tired after I was done. Then I found out that the beach was being closed “due to geometric mean of E. coli exceeding 126 MPN/100 mL.” I realized that I almost certainly had swum in that water. I didn’t get sick but continued to feel congested for several days. I also realized that 24 hours was not going to happen this year; I was disappointed, but not that disappointed. I’ll try again next year. I’m sad that swimming is over (is it? will I try again before they take the buoys down?), but I’m happy to be breathing better. Besides, I have moved onto marathon training and revising and expanding my collection of gorge poems. Yesterday, I wrote a poem about The Monument and Shadow Falls that I’m particularly excited about. Today, I’ll try writing about the trestle and/or Bohemian Flats, Locks and Dam no. 1, the tunnel of trees.