Author: Sara Puotinen

dec 10/RUN

6 miles
franklin hill and back
29 degrees

A big snowstorm is coming later today. Not sure how much — 7 inches? A foot? Saw Dave the Daily Walker and he called out, “Trying to beat the snow?” I called back, “Yes!” because I was. The snow is supposed to start this afternoon. Also saw Mr. Morning! and Santa Claus. Santa was in a bright yellow jacket, Mr. Morning! in dark sunglasses and a stocking cap. The walking path was almost completely covered with snow and ice, the bike path was clear. The river had a layer of gray ice. All of the “official” entrances to the Winchell Trail are now blocked off with a thick orange chain. Noticed a blanket which may or may not have contained a sleeping person, up against the most sheltered side of the port-a-potty under the lake street bridge. Because I was in motion and my vision is bad, all I could see was the form of a dark blanket. The noise I remember hearing most was traffic: lots of trucks and cars crossing the bridges. Also heard some construction near the Franklin Bridge on the east side of the river.

I ran down Franklin hill and kept going until I reached 3 miles. Then I turned around and ran back up the hill. Ran the entire thing without stopping this morning. Tried to block out my thoughts by chanting triple berries, mostly: “strawberry, blueberry, raspberry.” I was hoping some other triple words would pop into my head, but they didn’t and I didn’t try to force it.

dec 8/RUN

4.1 miles
river road, north/south
14 degrees
99% snow-covered

Fully boosted! Scott, FWA, and I got our booster shots 2 weeks ago today. Very relieved. I wish RJP could get hers too.

A little warmer today with lots of sun and hardly any wind. The only part of me that was cold this morning were my fingers and only for the first mile. The path was covered mostly in smooth packed snow. Not slippery but still requiring more effort than on dry pavement to lift my feet off the ground. Was able to greet Dave the Daily Walker and a few other walkers that I might have seen before but I can’t remember. The floodplain forest below the tunnel of trees was quiet and wintery and beautiful. Running north, I was distracted by a runner ahead of me, traveling at my same pace. He was far enough ahead that he probably didn’t notice I was there. He was wearing black running tights, black shorts, and a bright blue jacket with some writing or images on the back that I couldn’t identify. The only time I remember noticing the river was when I was high up on edmund at my favorite viewing spot where the sun, when it’s out, makes the small sliver of river peeking through the trees glow white hot. Today, the river was covered with snow and looked flat and dull. No sparkle or glow.

A few words related to my restless poem popped into my head: unsatisfied/not or never satisfied, unsettled, collecting, gathering, assembling

Ilya Kaminsky is in charge of the poem-a-day at poets.org this month and he’s doing a great job. Here’s the one for today from another poet I admire:

Big Clock/ Li-Young Lee – 1957-

When the big clock at the train station stopped,
the leaves kept falling,
the trains kept running,
my mother’s hair kept growing longer and blacker,
and my father’s body kept filling up with time.

I can’t see the year on the station’s calendar.
We slept under the stopped hands of the clock
until morning, when a man entered carrying a ladder.
He climbed up to the clock’s face and opened it with a key.
No one but he knew what he saw.

Below him, the mortal faces went on passing
toward all compass points.
People went on crossing borders,
buying tickets in one time zone and setting foot in another.
Crossing thresholds: sleep to waking and back,
waiting room to moving train and back,
war zone to safe zone and back.

Crossing between gain and loss:
learning new words for the world and the things in it.
Forgetting old words for the heart and the things in it.
And collecting words in a different language
for those three primary colors:
staying, leaving, and returning.

And only the man at the top of the ladder
understood what he saw behind the face
which was neither smiling nor frowning.

And my father’s body went on filling up with death
until it reached the highest etched mark
of his eyes and spilled into mine.
And my mother’s hair goes on
never reaching the earth.

There is so much I love about this poem, for right now I’ll pick: “And collecting words in a different language/for those three primary colors:/staying, leaving, and returning.”

dec 7/RUN

5.1 miles
minnehaha falls and back
10 degrees / feels like 1
light snow / 100% snow-covered

Winter! Snow, (almost) empty trails, fresh cold air, not too much wind. What a wonderful run. I ran slow and steady. The trails were completely covered and, if I didn’t know the paths so well, I might have had trouble seeing where to go but, I’ve run here so many times, I was fine. Everything was white, even the river.

10 Things I Noticed

  1. 2 types of crunching as my foot touched the ground, then lifted up: a slow creeaakk then a quick snap. Longer when walking, shorter as I ran. Both happening at same time, with the touching foot creaking and the lifting off foot snapping
  2. Snow brushed on one side of the tree trunk, looking like confectioners sugar
  3. the curved retaining wall, above the ravine, was easy to see, no longer hidden behind leaves
  4. Graffitti all over the wall of the biking half of the double bridge
  5. the falls were gushing at the bottom, iced at the top
  6. most of the trail was not slippery, but a few spots of ice or crusty snow hidden under fresh snow, were slick
  7. a few trucks and some workers parked near the John Stevens House, calling out to each other in loud voices
  8. the fake/recorded bell from the light rail train dinging for at least 10 seconds
  9. someone running much faster than me wearing a bright yellow vest
  10. lots of cars on the river road, most had their full lights on, at least one only had their parking lights on, a few had no lights on

Found this series of poems by Victoria Chang this morning, from her upcoming collection, The Trees Witness Everything:

The Wild Geese/ Victoria Chang

They are not wisdom
or freedom or history.
They are not what’s lost.
They are nothing but wild geese.
I can hear them everywhere,
wings pushing down metaphor.

Here’s what she writes in her “about the poem” section:

“These are a group of small poems that are a part of my forthcoming book, The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon Press, 2022). They are all written in various syllabic forms and the titles are all W.S. Merwin poem titles.”

This one is almost a tanka (5/7/5/7/7), with one extra 7 syllable line at the end. In Obit Chang wrote a tanka that I really like:

My children, children,
there’s applesauce everywhere
but it’s not for you.
It is strange to help someone
grow while helping someone die.

I love how effectively and efficiently she captures the difficulty of being a parent while your parent is dying. The applesauce does so much here, conjuring up little kids and their snacks, and old people at retirement homes eating softer foods. It makes me reflect on the similarities and differences between the very young and the very old, both needing help, but having different futures.

dec 6/BIKERUN

bike: 20 minutes
bike on stand
run: 3 miles
treadmill
outside temp: 9 / feels like -11

Welcome winter. I would have run outside but that wind, wow. 22 mph with 30+mph gusts. Decided I’d stay inside. Watched an old cross-country race while I biked, listened to a playlist while I ran. No amazing epiphanies, but it felt good to move.

I continue to work on my haunts/haunting/haunted poem sequence. One about restlessness is giving me some trouble. Restless as pacing, returning to loop/orbit around the river repeatedly, in constant motion, searching for a view + a way in (to connection, understanding, joy, better words). Constant motion as being blurred, fuzzy, unfinished, fizzing out (or leaking out?), released from form, not following straight, efficient lines (of a road) but a meandering trail that travels with the terrain, remembers/mingles with the past (thinking of Wendell Berry’s difference between a road and a trail / october’s apparitions). I want to end it with something about never leaving loud conclusions (better word?) but quiet records with my feet (referencing Girmay’s snail). I need at least one more day with this one, I think.

Here’s another great ghost poem I encountered the other day on twitter:

Ghosting/ Andrea Cohen

How cavalier
people are—

with language
and with silence.

Any ghost will
tell you—

the last thing
we mean

to do
is leave you.

dec 4/RUN

3.75 miles
turkey hollow
33 degrees

A nice morning for a run. Not too cold. Not too windy. Not too crowded. Ran on the dirt trail between Edmund and the River Road heading north, then on the road, heading back south. The dirt was very hard and made no sound. Not as fun as when it’s warmer and the dirt is softer and makes a pleasing shshshsh sound as I strike it. All I remember from my run is thinking about how running on uneven ground can be good for my muscles, making them work more to find balance and stability. Is that really it? I noticed a few other runners, a lot of cars. Oh, I stopped at the house that post poems on their window. Finally, a new one! I couldn’t read it on the window — too bright, too far away — but I got the author, Layli Long Soldier. She’s great. I’ll have to check back to see the title. I’m pretty sure it was from Whereas, but I have no idea which part. All I glimpsed was “window poem” which I thought was the title, but wasn’t.

Rereading the bit above about the dirt trail being good for muscles, a phrase from Wittgenstein popped into my head: rough ground. The need for rough ground you can feel and dig into, as opposed to smooth ice that you slide across with no traction. I have written about this before on this log — about the ice, that is. What can I do with it?

We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!

from Philosophical Investigations

dec 3/RUN

6 miles
franklin loop
37 degrees

Writing this entry almost an hour after my run, it’s sunny, but when I was out by the gorge it was overcast, with some mist or fog or some kind of moisture hanging in the air. Barely any wind. Calm, quiet, peaceful. I thought about the haunting poems I’m working on, and tried to forget Omicron. Just a few days ago, I wasn’t too concerned about this new variant. Without enough data, it’s too early for that. But, even though intellectually and emotionally (at least, I thought) I wasn’t stressed about it, my body has decided to have a mild sinus flair-up. Some pressure in my face/cheeks, a ticklish, scratchy throat. It’s not debilitating, just uncomfortable and distracting. Is this caused by anxiety over this new variant? Possibly. I’m trying to avoid twitter, facebook, and any online news in the hopes that it will calm me down.

Back to the poems I’m working on. Before heading out the door, I gave myself 2 questions to ponder: Who are the ghosts, the dead or the living? Does it depend on how you see (understand, think about, imagine) it? These questions were partly inspired by some lines from Ed Bok Lee in “Halos” that I’m using as an epigraph:

How else, when blinded by life,
would I remember:

to the dead, we’re the ghosts.

When I first read these lines, I was confused by them. I still am, but they seem to fit with how my sequence of poems on haunts/haunting/haunted play around with who is being haunted and who is doing the haunting. I like the idea of not resolving this question and letting both answers be possible at any given time, or at specific times. Sometimes the living are the ghosts, sometimes it’s the dead. I also like the idea of not spelling out what that means, but presenting images that complicate it. Running on the east side of the river, with a gray, mostly sunless sky, I encountered such an image: a pale, still river reflecting a fully formed, clear inverted trestle bridge in the water. Marveling at it, I wondered, which bridge is real, the one that’s right side up or the one upside down? As I continued to look at the water, I noticed fully formed trees, the lake street bridge, and clouds also reflected in the water. Very cool.

This images reminds me of May Swenson’s wonderful poem, Water Picture. Here’s an excerpt:

In the pond in the park
all things are doubled:
Long buildings hang and
wriggle gently. Chimneys
are bent legs bouncing
on clouds below. A flag
wags like a fishhook
down there in the sky.

The arched stone bridge
is an eye, with underlid
in the water. In its lens
dip crinkled heads with hats
that don’t fall off. Dogs go by,
barking on their backs.

10 Things I Noticed

  1. 4 stones stacked on the ancient boulder
  2. the clicking and clacking of ski poles as a roller skier approached from somewhere I couldn’t see
  3. running past the old stone steps: a clear, beautiful view of the forest floor and the trail that winds through bare tree trunks to reach the river
  4. the dark brown dirt of the Winchell Trail below me as I neared Franklin
  5. the folding table set up at the White Sands Beach far below me
  6. puddles on the franklin bridge — no ice, only standing water
  7. the ancient boulder on the east side of the river never has any stones stacked on it. Is that because its top isn’t flat enough?
  8. the fence panel that was removed a month or so ago, has been replaced and now, it’s hard to remember (or easy to forget) that it was ever missing
  9. looking down at the the part of the winchell trail that goes under the lake street bridge: the dirt is not a dark brown, but lighter, more yellow, almost like spicy brown mustard
  10. running north on the west side of the river road: car headlights approaching me through the trees

One more thing: I was able to greet both Dave, the Daily Walker and Mr. Morning! — that’s the name I came up with right now for the walker I’ve been seeing lately who likes to greet me with an enthusiastic, “morning!” I think he wears a darker blue coat, a stocking cap, and sunglasses. Mr. Morning! I love it.

I love how poets.org has an “about this poem” for each poem of the day. The one for today’s poem (from “The Book of Absence”) is very fitting for what I’m working on with my haunting poems:

About this Poem:

This is not poetry. This is a reading of the moment. Read it in the moment and pass on. Do not linger. Go. We don’t go to places. We go from places. We are dedicated to going, not staying. In going, we fade away. Consider my poetry as if you are walking down a road. Someone calls your name. You turn your head. There is nobody around. The road is deserted. Empty. You tell yourself somebody must have been there. But there is no one. Consider my poetry like that moment.”
—Alireza Roshan, translated by Erfan Mojib and Gary Gach

source

dec 1/RUN

6 miles
ford loop
38 degrees
humidity: 91%

It might reach the mid 50s today, but I couldn’t wait for that warmer weather to run. 38 is fine with me. I’d prefer less humidity, but I didn’t mind the gray sky and the cool mist on the river that it created. Not too many people out there. I did wave to Santa Claus — the tall, lean, older white male runner with a long-ish white beard — and “good mornied” the exuberant walker who always greets me with great enthusiasm.

Working on another of my haunt poems and started the run looking for a better word for the ending of it. Yes! Within 10 minutes, it came to me: lodged. What a wonderful thing moving and being outside is for my writing!

10 Things I Noticed

  1. Clear views of forest floors, the gorge, the other side
  2. Running up above on the lake street bridge: 2 people walking on the part of the winchell trail that winds under the bridge. Up here they looked like tiny black specks
  3. Below the lake st bridge on the st paul side: a crew in bright yellow jackets in a boat or some sort of floating dock — were they repairing something or looking for someone who fell in the river? Both are possible
  4. The stairs descending to the trail from the bridge: closed
  5. Empty bench after bench, each with a wide and clear view of the river and the west bank of the river
  6. A white dog pooping in the grass. It’s human bending over to pick up the poop
  7. People working on the 3.25 million dollar house being built by the east river road
  8. A leaf blower, the sound of its buzzing undulating as the person holding it squeezed and then released the grip
  9. Sirens and flashing cuts lights: an ambulance turning into Becketwood
  10. Shadow Falls: water trickling + patches of ice everywhere

I’m not sure what December’s theme will be yet. Maybe snow? Or the fragile, fleeting nature of everything? (This would be a contrast to October and November, in which I focused more on ghosts, as that which endure, remains, never fully leaves).

First Snow/ Arthur Sze

A rabbit has stopped on the gravel driveway:

           imbibing the silence,
           you stare at spruce needles:

                                 there’s no sound of a leaf blower,
                                 no sign of a black bear;

a few weeks ago, a buck scraped his rack
           against an aspen trunk;
           a carpenter scribed a plank along a curved stone wall.    

                      You only spot the rabbit’s ears and tail:

when it moves, you locate it against speckled gravel,
but when it stops, it blends in again;

           the world of being is like this gravel:

                      you think you own a car, a house,
                      this blue-zigzagged shirt, but you just borrow these things.    

Yesterday, you constructed an aqueduct of dreams
                      and stood at Gibraltar,
                                            but you possess nothing.

Snow melts into a pool of clear water;
           and, in this stillness,

                      starlight behind daylight wherever you gaze.

nov 29/RUN

4 miles
river road, north/south
50! degrees

Wow! Warm this afternoon. Ran at 3, about an hour and a half before sunset. The light was very cool. I might want to run again at this time. The best part: running above the gorge, over the river and the Winchell Trail, I was positioned just right so that I cast a shadow onto the water far below. Today my shadow got to swim. At least one of us could. Encountered some high schoolers running with sticks or ski poles or something. I couldn’t tell what they were. After I was done, I took off my visor, forgetting that I also had my bright pink headband on. A few minutes later I remembered and noticed it was gone. I retraced my steps and amazingly, was able to find it in the grass. I can’t believe I realized I had lost it, and I can’t believe I could see it in the grass.

Here’s something I read earlier today, which I love:

from Among the Trees/ Carl Phillips

SOME TREES ARE compasses, and some are flags. If a flag tells you where you are, a compass can potentially tell you how to get there or how to find someplace else. A flag, in marking a spot, seems more definitive, a form of punctuation; a compass implies movement, navigation. I know a man who, whenever he needs to write, or cry, or think—really think—goes to a willow in his local park and hides beneath its draped branches. He goes there so often, you could almost say he’s become part of the willow; he seems a willow himself; he marks a place in my life where I stopped to rest, once, but I couldn’t stay. Then there’s another man, long ago now. His body a forest when seen from the air in a small plane, so that it’s possible to get close enough to see where the oaks give way to poplar trees, or where, if you follow the pines far enough, they’ll open out to a field across which you can see the ocean. I couldn’t have found my way here without him.

I love the idea of trees as flags and compasses, and I love his description of the man who retreats to the willow. One of my favorite poems by Phillips features a willow, “And Swept All Visible Signs Away.” In it, could Phillips be referencing the willow man?

Here’s something else I read yesterday on twitter. I want to think some more about the differences between an eruption and a scattering:

when most people say their mind has been blown I think they mean like a volcano erupting but when I say it I mean my brain is a plucked dandelion someone’s scattered with their breath

@toddedilliard

nov 28/RUN

5.6 miles
minnehaha regional park and back*
27 degrees / feels like 20

*south on river road trail to the falls/ up the steps and over the bridge past John Stevens House/ turn around at 3 miles and the entrance to the trail that leads to a steep set of many steps down to the mississippi / back by the falls/ north on the river road trail

A cold wind this morning making it harder to breathe. Sunny, uncrowded, clear trails. Another nice run. Still thinking about ghosts. Thought about possessing, dispossessing, repossessing and then this reminder popped into my head: you can’t ever truly own (or possess, as in own, control, take over) something. The river gorge, for example, can be maintained, managed, exploited but it always exceeds that control. It spills over, invades, resists, refuses to be tamed.

10 Things I Noticed

  1. At the start of my run, before the sky had fully cleared, heading south, the sun was illuminating the river. The water was all silvery white with a few dark spots, caused by the reflection of a tree or a building
  2. All the trees are bare, nothing blocking the view to the Winchell Trail and the river below
  3. My shadow was clearly visible in front of me, not the faint hint of a shadow, but a full, almost solid form
  4. The falls: water still rushing over the rocks, but also big columns of ice falling down too
  5. After running under the ford bridge, I noticed — not for the first time — a dirt trail that winds through the small woods between ford parkway above and west river parkway below. For much of the year, this trail is hidden behind leaves
  6. The dinging of the train bells at the 50th street station on the other side of Hiawatha — not real bells, but a recording. A hollow, fake sound
  7. Voices from runners approaching. It took a long time for me to tell if they were coming from in front of or behind me
  8. The sidewalk/walking path that winds above the gorge between the Veteran’s Home and the dog park often undulates — up up doooowwwwnnn
  9. Running parallel to someone below on the Winchell trail, hearing the leaves rustle as they ran through them
  10. At the end of my run: the clicking and clacking of a roller skier’s poles

Finally, after getting this book in July of 2020, I’m reading Victoria Chang’s amazing Obit. Here’s one that mentions a shadow:

Victoria Chang–died unknowingly on
June 24, 2009 on the I-405 freeway.
Born in the Motor City, it is fitting
she died on a freeway. When her
mother called about her father’s heart
attack, she was living an indented
life, a swallow that didn’t dip. This
was not her first death. All her deaths
had creases except this one. It didn’t
matter that her mother was wrong (it
was a stroke) but that Victoria Chang
had to ask whether she should drive to
see the frontal lobe. When her mother
said yes, Victoria Chang had the
feeling of not wanting to. Someone
heard that feeling. Because he did
not die but all of his words did. At the
hospital, Victoria Change cried when
her father no longer made sense. This
was before she understood the cruelty
of his disease. It would be the last time
she cried in front of it. She switched
places with her shadow because
suffering changes shape and happens
secretly.

nov 26/RUN

5.5 miles
bottom of franklin hill + extra
33 degrees

The air felt colder than 33. Maybe because of the wind? A good run. My old apple watch is dying (ver 2), and it shut down at the third mile so I don’t know my exact distance. I’m pretty sure I ran about 5.5 miles.

Not too crowded. A little faster. I listened to an old playlist. I don’t remember much. All the trees are bare. The water had icy foam at its edges, near the shore. There are some flowers — still not sure if they are real or plastic — at the trestle. Running by it last week, I thought they were in a vase. Stopping there today, I realized they were put in the remains of a post. Once, part of metal railing on ledge under the trestle, now an uncapped cylinder sticking out of ledge, the only bit left of the railing. Noticed several white sewer/run-off pipes popping out of the side of the gorge. Also noticed the start of the Winchell Trail on the north side. A biker sped past me as I ran, then walked, up the Franklin hill. They were going fast!

Here’s a delightful poem that I just found twitter. I might like to memorize this so I can have it when I need it:

The Orange / Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.