dec 20/RUN

5k
2 school loop
27 degrees

What a beautiful morning for a run! Frost everywhere, even on the road, sparkling in the bright sun. Not too much wind. Encountered a few patches of ice on the sidewalk, but no snow. Heard a strange bird, with a strident double cry, as I ran. Was it a bluejay? Lots of people on the trail and on the grass between Edmund and the river road.

Decided to recite “What Would Root” from memory. Normally it takes me about 3 minutes to recite it all (it’s a long poem), but while running it took 7 and a half minutes. Many distractions and repeated lines. I stumbled over the line, “The squirrels, I mentioned them already, etc, and the lizards ran down the spines of rocks like a bad feeling.” I kept wanting to recite climbed instead of ran even though I felt like that was wrong, which it was. Also got stuck on the line, “that they were a part of my body I could not doubt; they were living and enervated and jutting out.” In my typed up version, I had alive instead of living. Reciting it in my head, that sounded wrong rhythmically, which it was (again). I love the scolding squirrels and the chill red-crested woodpecker that “was not offended I didn’t know his name” and the land spreading greenly before me and the roots in my skull shifting. Such a magical, strange poem!