5.3 miles
franklin loop
28 degrees
Sunny, calm, mostly quiet. Turned onto a street at the same time as another runner on the opposite sidewalk. Both us running almost the same speed for at least a minute. Was he trying to race me? Not sure. I was hoping one of us would be faster so I could avoid being too focused on him. Somewhere in the next few blocks, I started pulling ahead. Did he slow down or turn onto another street?
Ran with my shadow. Felt tired after running 4 miles yesterday and almost 5 the day before. Remembered to notice the river: lots of slushy dollops of foam. I watched it moving slowing downstream as it crossed under the lake street bridge. To keep myself steady, I recited my lines from Emily Dickinson, “Life is but life/and death but death/Bliss is but bliss/and breath but breath.”
Heard several woodpeckers drumming on dead wood. Thought about my mannequin poem and figured out a possible line in which I replace “the mannequins” with “the women and children.” I like it, but I’m not quite sure if it works. Does it give the wrong tone?
Still reading through Dart and thinking about Alice Oswald’s work. Here’s another poem from her that I’d like to read through many more times. I want to think more about what she means by: “to be brief/to be almost actual”
A RUSHED ACCOUNT OF THE DEW / Alice Oswald
I who can blink
to break the spell of daylight
and what a sliding screen between worlds
is a blink
I “who can hear the last three seconds in my head
but the present is beyond me
listen
in this tiny moment of reflexion
I want to work out what it’s like to descend
out of the dawn’s mind
and find a leaf and fasten the known to the unknown
with a liquid cufflink
and then unfasten
to be brief
to be almost actual
oh pristine example
of claiming a place on the earth
only to cancel