Category: Running Log

july 18/BIKESWIM

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
61 degrees (there) / 68 (back)

It’s great to bike! Independence! Not having to rely on someone else to get me to the lake. And, being on a bike is much more fun than being in a car.

Overcast and cool. Some wind as I biked south and west. I might have glimpsed the river through the trees, looking almost white, but I don’t remember. Heard the rush of the light rail going past on the other side of the barricade. Also heard the rush of the creek, moving past the spot where all the kids like to swim. Heard the rhythmic thwack of the pickle ball hitting the racket. The pickle ball courts by the lake nokomis rec center are always full. And, as I neared the big beach, I heard a shrill sound on repeat. Scott and I had heard it last night and thought it was a person whistling. Nope. Was it a bird? What else could it have been?

swim: 3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
64 degrees

A little tired today after last night’s swim. Otherwise, I felt good, buoyant, high up on the surface of the water. My sparkle friends were coming right at me as I swam across to the little beach. The sky was covered in clouds. The positioning of the buoys was closer today than last nigh, so a much shorter course. Two things: the green buoy closest to the little beach was farther away this morning than last night and the middle green buoys were closer together — a tighter angle. According to my watch, I swam a mile and 1000 less strokes today.

I had trouble keeping my nose plug on; it was leaking air which made a funny nose underwater. I wondered if other swimmers could hear it. Have I heard the noises of other swimmer’s underwater before? Not in lake, but I’ve heard clicking elbows in the pool.

Mostly my stroke pattern was: 1 2 3 4 5 breathe right 1 2 3 4 5 breathe left
Occasionally: 1 2 3 4 5 6
or 1 2 3 breathe right 1 2 3 4 breathe right 1 2 3 left 1 2 3 4 left

I recited Alice Oswald, mostly the one about microscopic insects that catch pigment on their shivering hair-like receptors. I wanted to recite the new lines I tried to memorize last night, but I got stuck on the first line. I couldn’t remember disintegrating certainty.

Yesterday I watched a little of the 5k open water swim world championships from Singapore. The competitors were swimming in a shipping lane with an over-sized lane line on one side. This lane line was enormous, much bigger proportionately than a pool lane line. It looked strange and unreal.

10 Colors

  1. orange buoy
  2. red lifeguard kayak
  3. white swan
  4. an occasional dot of robin’s egg blue — the green buoy getting closer
  5. lime green buoy
  6. yellow safety buoy
  7. pink cap
  8. green vine, floating
  9. pale greenish-brown vine from milfoil reaching up from the bottom
  10. a smear of green so dark it almost looked black near the ford bridge: a dark dirt trail that winds through the woods

EXAQUA

Last week, I returned to a poem I posted on this log a few years back: EXAQUA / Jan-Henry Gray. So many good lines about water. I decided to request it from the library — it’s in Gray’s collection, Documents. Yesterday RJP and I went and picked it up. Exaqua is several pages long, with multiple sections. Today I’ll start reading it more closely.

I wondered about the title. What does it mean? In a note, Gray writes that the title comes from the “Notanda” section of M.NourbeSe Philip’s Zong. I’ve heard of Zong! before. JJJJJermoe Ellis writes about it in Aster of Ceremonies. I had to do a little more digging to find out what it means in Zong! Found a masters thesis with an explanation:

When Morrison writes, “By and by all trace is gone, and what is forgotten is not only the footsteps but the water too and what is down there,” she gestures toward the material remains of the enslaved who we know to have been drowned by those waters—the “Sixty Million and more” to whom Beloved (324). It is in an attempt to remember “the water and what is down there” that NourbeSe attempts to do the work of recovering, reclaiming, or exhuming those bodies from their liquid graves. The term NourbeSe uses to describe this process is exaqua: that is, to exhume the bodies of the Zong’s victims from the water. In lieu of the enslaved’s literal, material remains—their scoured bones— Zong! orients itself toward creating a textual space where their voices may sound out. When we have observed that a voice is singular, this observation has rested on the embodiedness of our voices. As sound, our voices are constituted by the materialities of our bodies that produces them, thereby carrying something of our bodies outside of ourselves and spacing it out into the material world. For NourbeSe, then, Zong! as a material object is like the surface from which the sound of the captives’ voices reemerge.

Listening/Reading for Dismembered Voices

This definition is fascinating. I want to keep thinking about it as I do a close reading of the different sections of the poem. An immediate thought: the idea of surface here is interesting — surface as where what is inside us travels outside.

immersion

The only way to know a song is to sing it.
The only way to know an ocean is to swim it.
(from Across the Pacific Ocean/ Jan-Henry Gray)

These lines are from an earlier poem in the collection, but I’ve been thinking about them and I think they can be put into conversation with EXQUA. I’d also like to put them into conversation with my own thoughts on being in the water as opposed to being near it or beside it or above it (like I am with the river).

I think about all that I know or understand or am familiar with because of the time I’ve been in lake nokomis over the last 12 years. The quality of the water, its currents, its colors, its buoyancy, its temperatures. The sediments, the ducks, seagulls, loons, dragonflies, the vegetation.

In the water, you feel the ripples, the swells, the rocking of the waves, the wind. Out of the water, you might see a textured surface or a whitecap, but you might only see flat, calm water.

july 17/RUNSWIM

4 miles
river road, north/south
57 degrees
humidity: 80%

In the 50s! What a beautiful morning. Sunny, calm, cool. My gait felt strange, awkward, for the first 1/2 mile. Was it the shoes? I wore Brooks instead of Sauconys. The humidity was high — lots of sweat, not dripping but pooling near my nose. Chanted in triples for the first mile.

10 Things

  1. rowers! heard 2 different coxswains
  2. after 5 or 6 months, they’re finally replacing the fallen fence panel above the northern end of longfellow flats
  3. the dirt they put in the crack north of the trestle has settled and the crack is back and as big as before — at one point will this be unfixable?
  4. good morning! / good morning! — exchanged greetings with a runner with a dog
  5. good morning! — Mr. Holiday wished me a good morning
  6. click click thought it was a roller skier, but it was a biker changing gears
  7. a circle of light below the sliding bench — have they cleared some branches for more of a view here?
  8. smell of cigarette smoke
  9. the dark dirt of a steep trail leading down to the river
  10. the loud slap of a runner’s shoes as he passed me, running fast, or at least much faster than me

I was watching the tour as I compiled the 10 Things list, but had to put my computer away when they reached the last climb — a tough HC. Pogacar went for it near the bottom and Vingegaard couldn’t follow. Wow!

to remember and return to

water and time / log entry for 11 july 2024

lines to memorize for today’s swim?

this disintegrating certainty this water
whatever it is whatever anything is
under these veils and veils of vision
which the light cuts but it remains

unbroken
(Nobody/ Alice Oswald)

while I’m swimming today: recite this bit and the others from Dart and Nobody:

swim: 4 loops
lake nokomis open swim
71 degrees

Open swim is back and I did 4 loops! A wonderful night, in and out of the water. The water was smooth and fast and not too warm or too cold or too crowded. Entering the lake, I watched as a motorized paddle board zoomed by, then another. What? As I swam toward and then past the orange buoy I heard a metallic buzz in the water. Was it because of these paddle boards? I am very grateful that motorized boats aren’t allowed on nokomis. If they were, would I be hearing this buzzing sound all of the time?

I was off course in the first loop; the sun made it very difficult to see the green buoys. But it wasn’t a big deal. On the second loop, I figured it out.

I marveled at the contrast between above and below the surface. Above was a smooth blue, below a glittering green. Checked out my bubbles. Felt the water darken when the sun went behind a cloud. Was attacked by a few stray vines.

Thought about how much I love the water and how confident I am in it, and then about how dangerous and scary and deadly it can be.

Recited Alice Oswald lines — not the new ones I just memorized, but the ones I’d already been reciting in my head.

july 16/RUN

Rain this early (7 am) morning. Hopefully stopping in a few hours. Watching the tour and rereading old entries from july 16ths. Discovered this excellent description of a buzzing bug:

The Locust/ Leonara Speyer

Its hot voice sizzles from some cool tree
Near-by:
It seems to burn its way through the air
Like a small, pointed flame of sound
Sharpened on the ecstatic edge of sunbeams.

note: I first posted this poem on 16 july 2022. I posted it again last year in 2024. Maybe I should memorize it?

a few hours later: what a stage of the tour (stage 11)! Pogacar crashing; Visma waiting for him. What will happen tomorrow in the Pyrenees?

It is 10:30 and a light rain. Won’t stop until 12:30. Do I wait, or go now? It’s probably refreshing and it might be fun to run in the rain . . .

4.25 miles
minnehaha falls and back
66 degrees
light rain

I did it, and it was a great run! Back to the 9/1 (9 minutes running / 1 minute walking) and feeling strong and relaxed. The light rain helped to cool me down, and I liked how my feet glided on the wet trail. Glided sounds strange. How about glode or glid or glod? Started the run by chanting in triple berries then turning everything I noticed into triples — river road, dripping trees, running feet, rushing cars. Listened to everything dripping for the first 30 minutes, then put in the “Energy” playlist for the last stretch.

10 Things

  1. gloom with the occasional bright flash from headlights
  2. one flash looked lower — I think it was a reflection in a big puddle!
  3. the ravine by 42nd was gushing like the falls
  4. the falls were giving off a fine, gauzy spray
  5. a stranded surrey near the longfellow house — were they getting wet in the rain?
  6. someone walking up the hill at the edge of the park, carrying an umbrella
  7. above the creek, the grass next to the sidewalk was soaked with a line of big puddles
  8. the sprawling reflection of a tree in a wide puddle on a sidewalk
  9. the silhouette of a bird on a wire, looking very Bird
  10. the bells of St. Thomas — faint, distant

an hour later: I was planning to do open swim at cedar lake tonight but I just got an email: “canceled due to inclement weather.” Bummer.

a few random Alice Oswald bits

1

On her process of translating what she notices into a poem, and on poetry as framing the silence:

She and her husband, playwright Peter Oswald, divide their day in two – walking their sons to and from school through fields. But she doesn’t take a notebook with her. She believes in the subconscious, in what is brewing on a ‘non-verbal level’. She thinks ‘a flavour or feeling builds up, almost a sculptural shape that could be a living creature, or a dance or a painting’. Only later comes the ‘plastic art of finding the words’.

There is also, in her poems, a sense of the silence behind every word. ‘One of the differences between poetry and prose is that poetry is beyond words. Poetry is only there to frame the silence. There is silence between each verse and silence at the end.’ 

into the woods

2

Wood Not Yet Out/ Alice Oswald

closed and containing everything, the land
leaning all round to block it from the wind,
a squirrel sprinting in startles and sees
sections of distance tilted through the trees
and where you jump the fence a flap of sacking
does for a stile, you walk through webs, the cracking
bushtwigs break their secrecies, the sun
vanishes up, instantly come and gone.
once in, you hardly notice as you move,
the wood keeps lifting up its hope, I love
to stand among the last trees listening down
to the releasing branches where I’ve been –
the rain, thinking I’ve gone, crackles the air
and calls by name the leaves that aren’t yet there

Oh, that ending! Now I’m imagining what the rain does when it thinks I’m not around! Today the rain didn’t crackle the air but . . . dotted it? feathered it? poked or punctured it?

3

The other day I came across Alice Oswald’s description of a project she’ll be working on next year as a fellow at Columbia University. She’s calling it Interviews with Anon:

At the Institute, Oswald will write a procession of passersby, not all of whom are human and many of whom are imperfectly seen: “My inspiration is the wandering, bartering, folktale style of Herodotus, who included 940 characters in his Histories. I shan’t be writing history. Perhaps it will be more like a headcount or even a carnival.”

Interviews with Anon

Very cool! I can’t wait to read/hear this in a few years.

july 15/RUN

1.75 miles
neighborhood
80 degrees
dew point: 70

Wanted to do a longer run today, but it was too hot! At first I wasn’t going to run at all, but I decided to do a short one to, as I sang to Scott, kick start my heart. Of course I sang the melody of this song completely wrong and of course we had to listen to the original. Ugh! And of course I had to remind Scott that one of the many soccer teams I was on as a kid was named Motley Crüe. Another team: Jabberwockies.

When I was in the shade it wasn’t too bad, but in the direct sun — HOT! I had wanted to run to the overlook on the bridge but I noticed, at the last minute — a few feet from the sign — that the sidewalk was closed. So, I turned down and ran south on the river road trail. Ah, shade!

10 Things

  1. my bright yellow running shoes
  2. the neighbor who is always sitting on his front steps smoking was there but wasn’t smoking
  3. the excited chirping of little kids on the playground at the daycare
  4. from a biker: that was so sweet — the tone of sweet made me think kind, thoughtful, not awesome
  5. a long line of cars on lake street
  6. my shadow, straight and strong
  7. 2 runners crossing the street, standing in the bike path, a biker approaching, heads up! / oh, sorry!
  8. the rush of wind through the trees
  9. a steady stream of cars on the river road making it difficult to cross
  10. the dark brown dirt, the gentle curve of the green grass, the sharp edge between of a front yard on 46th

This Be the Place: a Pond

Today is the first rest day of the tour so no cycling to watch all morning. Instead I returned to my morning reading practice of visiting poetry sites and rereading past log entries. A lot of great stuff, including: This Be the Place: A Several-Acre Space of Tenderness/ Han Vanderhart

The “several-acre” space is a pond, which struck me as strange. I think of ponds as small bodies of water and several-acres sound big. But is it (big, that is)? Maybe several acres is small. What distinguishes a pond from a lake? I recall looking up brooks and streams and creeks and rivers when I was reading Emily Dickinson’s poem, Have you got a Brook in your little heart (see 13 march 2021), but not ponds. So I looked it up. Fascinating!

pond or lake: the distinction is arbitrary

The term “lake” or “pond” as part of a waterbody name is arbitrary and not based on any specific naming convention. In general, lakes tend to be larger and/or deeper than ponds, but numerous examples exist of “ponds” that are larger and deeper than “lakes.” . . .Names for lakes and ponds generally originated from the early settlers living near them, and the use of the terms “lake” and “pond” was completely arbitrary. Many have changed names through the years, often changing from a pond to a lake with no change in size or depth. Often these changes in name were to make the area sound more attractive to perspective home buyers.

Lake or Pond: What’s the Difference?

from lake to pond to wetland

Learned that the study of inland waters is limnology. And the terms, lotic and lentic, too:

surface waters are divided into lotic (waters that flow in a continuous and definite direction) and lentic (waters that do not flow in a continuous and definite direction) environments. Waters within the lentic category gradually fill in over geologic time and the evolution is from lake to pond to wetland. This evolution is slow and gradual, and there is no precise definition of the transition from one to the next.

Lake or Pond: What’s the Difference?

From lake to pond to wetland reminds of my discussion of ecological succession and Robin Wall Kimmerer at the begining of May. A meadow becomes a thicket, a thicket becomes a forest.

Was Lake Nokomis ever a (bigger) lake that became a pond, then a wetland, then a lake again? Yes!

The landscape around Lake Nokomis was formed by natural forces, to be a place that absorbed and stored water. Over 11,000 years ago, glaciers carved through the land, and then retreated and melted. As the ice blocks that were left behind melted, they formed an expansive system of interconnected wetlands and lakes. Under these saturated conditions organic material from dead plants was unable to completely decompose, forming extensive peat deposits — a wetland soil. Because peat readily absorbs moisture and can hold up to 10 times its weight in water, it can act as a barrier and prevent rainfall from draining into deeper layers of the soil. This can cause water to accumulate, or perch, above the peat. Once abundant wetlands in South Minneapolis were filled or development.

In 1853, the U.S. Surveyor General’s Office conducted the first government land survey of the landscape around Lake Nokomis, then called Lake Amelia. The area contained over 1,500 acres olakes and wetlands. At that time, the natural lakes were larger and shallower than today. Since then, nearly 60% of the area’s wetlands have been filled. In their place is today’s built landscape.

Lake Nokomis Area Groundwater and Surface Water Evaluation

if we opened people up, we’d find landscapes

Linda Gregg might call my pond a “resonant source,” a term she uses for places that are “present as essences. They operate invisibly as energy, equivalents, touchstones, amulets, buried seed, repositories, and catalysts.” These are the Ur-images of our creative psyches, that live with us and inform our writing. “If we opened people up,” remarked the filmmaker Agnès Varda, “we’d find landscapes.” Along with a Virginia creek and cornfields and the wood with its mayapples, this pond is inside me: as summer, as stillness, as childhood—as peace.

This Be the Place: A Several-Acre Space of Tenderness/ Han Vanderhart

You can not realize you are in despair, looking at a pond’s surface.

I love the surface of Lake Nokomis. How when I lift my head out of the green water to sight, I see blue. How its ripples sparkle and its small waves sometimes look like other swimmers. How dragonflies hover above, bubbles hang just below it. How it often hides its moods from those at a distance; what looks calm and still from afar, feels rough and active from within.

ponds and writers: Maxine Kumin and Henry David Thoreau

Two writers that popped into my head as I think and read about ponds; Maxine Kumin and her homemade pond, Pobiz Pond, on her farm and Thoreau and Walden Pond. I just requested Kumin’s memoir in which she writes about how she and her husband, along with help from friends, dug out a pond on their farm property.

Other poetry people who love ponds? Mary Oliver, of course!

note: I was planning to swim, but open swim was canceled because of thunderstorms forecasted for 6:30.

july 14/RUN

3.1 miles
locks and dam #1 and back
72 degrees / humidity: 84%
air quality: 117

Hot! Humid! Hazy! The shade helped. Avoided the crowded river road trail. Heading south I ran on the narrow, root-filled dirt trail on the grassy boulevard until I reached the parking lot, then the trail to Locks and Dam #1. Heading back north, I ran on the Winchell Trail.

There was a moment when I heard the soft rush of cars, the trickle of water out of the sewer pipe, and . . .? I know there were 3 distinct sounds that I noticed all at once and that I imagined putting in a contrapuntal poem. Was the third sound the rowers? the birds? the tapping which might have been a woodpecker on a tree, or a squirrel with a nut? It wasn’t the wind, because there is no wind today. I felt its lack, but also saw it on the surface of the water. Still, thick. It wasn’t the buzzing of workers sawing or mowing or building something. What was it? Just remembered! The soft then sharp buzz of cicadas, which came in waves. I knew I’d remember it! (It only took 2 hours.)

The common thread for these 3 noises is their steady, insistent beat, not moving time forward, but around and around, on repeat.

swimming words

Catch water, thumb first then the semi-circle pull,
arms straight, centre, down. Palm push back, twist
shoulder to breath. And recover.
Kick. Kick. Kick.

Catch. Pull. Push. Twist, Recover.
CatchPullPush. TwistRecover.
CatchPullPushTwistRecover.
Catchpullpushtwistrecover
(No Moon/ Tanis Rideout)

The Catch/ Tanis Rideout

Stretch bone to breakwall and the tidal roar of thirty thousand
swamps, refuses to crest, to break. Thirst for the bubbled silence
of midnight, midlake, midstroke when the limelight was all
to reach for, a trap door opening to a world below.

Pulse counts in an orchestra — it’s only a paper moon
waterlogged and beaming up, a lighthouse lamp spinning
in time. A course to decipher all the way to safe harbour.
There’s a table laid in checkered cloth. The catch of the day muscles away.

At the edge, pulled bodily from a lake that holds fast and drags
thighs, shins against stacked stone and laps the bloody threads.
It won’t return you whole to the land.

Love the title of this poem and the last line. Does the lake return me whole to the land? What does it mean to be returned whole? And, is that to be desired?

I was planning to do open swim at Cedar Lake tonight, but there is a heat advisory and it’s 90 degrees, so Scott and I will go on Wednesday instead, when it’s much cooler.

process influences constraint

Last week, I read about Sarah Riggs’ approach to writing her latest collection, Lines:

In my poem “November 14” from Lines we start with “Only hour only thought: speech speech.” At the age of 47 I set out to write the book in 47-minute time periods. Roughly an hour, an only hour so to speak, in a field of time dedicated only to thinking/ speaking. Increasingly hard to do this century, with text messages et cetera punctuating thought.  So on October 15, 2018, I started on a dictation of the mind so to speak, in which second thoughts are also written, and set my phone timer for each writing session, at the same café for many of the poems.  Not written so much as transposed.  I determined each poem would be 47 lines, and the lines do not need to be connected to ones before or after, though they could be. There would be 47 poems. The name of each poem is the date it was written.  To be in time, in the calendar, to have a project that is a book that is a series. To feel in the momentum of it. To slant into dream, to invite that we survive through the tilt and whir of connecting synapses. 

Sarah Riggs on Writing Lines, and the Revolutionary Pleasure of Process, Influence, and Constraints

Process, Influence, and Constraints. I love all 3 of these, and think about them quite a bit. I like how Riggs opens the essay: “The bird song and street noise and lilt of the subway and recent phone conversations go into our poetry. We are made up of influences, there is no blank page or screen, as has been said many times.”

In terms of influence, Riggs offers these suggestions:

Channel an influence or more than one.  You can choose to riff on or translate someone else’s work. You can choose epigraphs. Dedicate or address your work to someone.

I like the idea of translation. I’ve been playing around with something I call form fitters, where I take words from other poets I love and fit them into my running rhythms (3/2 or 2/1 or 3/3/3/4) and swimming breath patterns (5 syllable lines or 3/4/3/4 or 5/4/5/4). I also like the idea of taking a line and making it the title or, what about the last line?, of a poem. Playing around with influences could be a fun month-long project?!

july 13/SWIMBIKE

5 loops
lake nokomis open swim
71 degrees

5 loops on a beautiful Sunday morning! Even though we’re still under bad air quality advisory and there was smoke and haze lingering above the lake, I didn’t have any trouble breathing. The smoke-haze made it difficult to see the buoys, however. Who cares — not me! I still swam straight towards the buoys.

My 1 2 3 4 5 breathe right 1 2 3 4 5 breathe left or 1 2 3 right 1 2 3 4 right 1 2 3 left 1 2 3 4 left was relaxed and steady. My arms and legs in constant motion, rotating and kicking.

I call my circuits around the buoys loops, but that’s not quite right. They are more triangles, not curved but a straight line with 3 buoys from the northern end of the big beach to the little beach, then a straight line with 2 buoys from the little beach to the southern end of the big beach, then a straight line parallel to beach from the last green buoy to the only orange one and the start of one circuit, the beginning of another. Swimming in the lake is less about curves and more about lines and angles. Angled elbows, a straight back — parallel, the intersecting legs-as-lines. The first segment was fairly smooth and fast, the second was choppy and sluggish, and the third was smoother and faster.

10 Things

  1. something/someone tapped my toe mid-lake — I couldn’t see anyone, was it a fish? a twig?
  2. particles suspended, glittering — my sparkle friends!
  3. my hands wrapped in bubbles
  4. a loose vine passed over my legs, got stuck in my fingers
  5. a military plane flying fast
  6. light green, a hint of yellow, water
  7. glitter on the surface of the water where other swimmers where
  8. hazy blue sky
  9. a gentle rocking from the water
  10. near the end of the final loop — a sore back

I recited my 4 A Oswald lines about microscopic insects in the eye and surfacing and diving again and giving water the weight and size of myself and lifting the lid and shutting it. Such great lines! Admired the bubbles on my hands, thought of Anne Sexton and shedding them and then believed the bubbles were little thoughts and feelings and ideas that some part of me was shedding and offering to the water and anyone in it.

Thought about my gorge poem that begins, I go to/the gorge / / to find the/soft space. Started composing one for the lake: I go to/the lake // to be held. Thought about the verb, to behold, then beheld, which reminded me of a line in a poem that I love and had pondered on 19 june: Unsee the beheld! / Altitude/ Airea D. Matthews

Unsee the beheld where to unsee is to observe/witness with a sense other than sight, or to unravel, come undone or redone, transformed. Who/what is the beheld? Me, held by the water. So, to unsee me, to let go of me/I and have an encounter/exchange with that which is not-I: the water. I haven’t written about this bit yet, but yesterday I was thinking about Anne Carson and her anthropology of water and I wrote in my Plague Notebook, encounter with that which you cannot contain, control, that is not You — the not-I. In the lake, I am held by the water — rocked, enveloped, lifted — but in the process of being held I dissolve, or the small part of Sara the ecosystem that is I is saturated. Yes, this makes sense to me, but will it to anyone else, including future Sara?

I read mention of May Swenson’s poem “Swimmers” yesterday and I happened to have it in Nature: Poems Old and New. I’m still trying to figure out the different ways I can read the stanzas — across; down the left, then down the right, then bottom?down the left, to the bottom, and up the right? down the left only? down the right only?

Swimmers/ May Swenson

Tossed
by the muscular sea,
we are lost,
and glad to be lost
in troughs of rough

love. A bath in
laughter, our dive
into foam,
our upslide and float
on the surf of desire.

But sucked to the root
of the water-mountain —
immense —
about to tip upon us
the terror of total

delight —
we are towed,
helpless in its
swell, by hooks
of our hair;

then dangled, let go,
make to race —
as the wrestling chest
of the sea, itself
tangled, tumbles

in its own embrace.
Our limbs like eels
are water-boned,
our faces lost
to difference and

contour, as the lapping
crests.
They cease
their charge,
and rock us

in repeating hammocks
of the releasing
tide —
until supine we glide,
on cool green

smiles
of an exhaling
gladiator,
to the shore
of sleep.

However I read it, it’s good!

bike: 4 miles
the falls and back
84 degrees

Biked to the falls with Scott for a beer and a hike and some time to be in the midst of others. Sassy, strong little girls, BIG dogs, small yippy dogs, a hiker with poles, surreys, kids playing soccer, a guy that looked like Mr. Hand, 2 long-haired dachshunds in the ice cream line, a LONG ice cream line, a LONGER food line. A roaring falls, a raging creek, blocked-off steps and wooden path. A dog that plopped down and refused to move, a guy walking by, laughing and calling out to his friend, that dog is done!

july 12/BAD AIR

I was planning to run today, maybe even a 10k, but smoke from Canadian wild fires has blown in and made it unhealthy to exercise. You can see and smell and feel the smoke. Bummer. Hopefully they won’t cancel tomorrow’s open swim because of it. And hopefully they won’t have reason to because the smoke will have dissipated.

So, instead of running, I’m reading this morning: old entries and summaries about water. In “Happy 100th Birthday Lake Nokomis” (2014), I found this paragraph:

It can take a century or longer for dredged water bodies to begin functioning like a naturally occurring lakes. As part of the master planning process currently underway, Nokomis was analyzed to see if it was still stabilizing. The water quality consultant from EOR (Emmons and Olivier Resources, Inc.), has determined that Nokomis has finished its transitional period and is now functioning like a natural lake.

Happy 100th Birthday Lake Nokomis

This idea of Nokomis making it to “natural lake” status needs to be in a poem, I think. What does it mean to function like a natural lake?

And here’s some information, from Theodore Wirth:

The area acquired consisted of about 300 acres of shallow water known as Lake Amelia, about 70 acres of mostly low swampy farmland at the northwest corner, and about 38 acres of higher dry land at its northeast corner [where the Recreation Center sits now], as well as a small strip along the south boundary. The improvement plan contemplated reducing the water area from 300 to 200 acres (the minimum depth of the lake to be not less than eight feet and the low lands to be filled to well above the lake level), and increasing the total land area from 108 to 208 acres. Estimated dredging operations amounted to between 2,000,000 and 2,500,000 cubic yards.

Happy 100th Birthday Lake Nokomis

Here’s something to put beside this idea of Lake Nokomis as a dredged out marsh/shallow lake. It’s a line from a poem:

How can anyone read about the glacial
creation of lakes and not feel connected
to the Earth–capital E?
(from Exaqua/ Jan-Henry Gray)

What connection can/should/does one feel to the Earth when reading about the creation of a lake through dredging and planning and acquiring land for recreation and development? As a preliminary answer, I’ll offer, there is/can be a meaningful connection; it’s just not the same as with a “natural”/glacial lake.

july 11/SWIM

4 loops
lake nokomis open swim
73 degrees

Great water! Warm, buoyant, calm, and near the shore, clear. A steady — 1 2 3 4 5 breathe right 1 2 3 4 5 breathe left — swim. Felt strong and relaxed and rhythmic. Didn’t see the buoys that often but knew exactly where they were.

10 Things

  1. the tops of the mifoil: green, wispy, some feathery, some stringy
  2. light green water
  3. green buoys looking robin’s egg blue
  4. the sharp angle of the taut rope with a weight on its end, anchoring the buoy
  5. ducks swimming near shore
  6. glowing bubbles covering my hands
  7. the lifeguard talking through the speaker, testing 1 2 3 attention open swimmers, the course is now open. enjoy your swim!
  8. pale legs underwater — parallel to the ground, kicking breaststroke then fluttering
  9. the feel of something in the water, then a trail of bubbles, then a pale leg — a quick swerve around another swimmer
  10. rounding the green buoy closest to the little beach, getting a brief glimpse of the next buoy — green, looking only like a bright dot, and only visible sometimes

Recited my AO lines again. a rush of gold to the head — giving water the weight and size of myself in order to imagine it — she surfaced and peered around and dived again and surface and saw someone

the beginning of a lake

I started rereading Argument with the Lake this afternoon — a poetry collection I bought in 2018 — and discovered this description of the origins of a lake. I’ll add it to my growing collection of descriptions — of a river in England (see: 30 aug 2024) and a lake in Germany (see: 2 july 2024).

from Begin/ Tanis Rideout

This lake, like others, was dug out. Glacial ice grinding south, scouring
weak Silurian stone, an arctic tsunami leaving only the backbone of the escarpment. Canadian Shield and broken tumble of kames in its
retreat.

The glacial rebound cast this lake of shimmering waters, Ontario. Give
or take
a geologic blink. And now, a girl on Holocene shores measures the
distance —
her to here. Fifty-four kilometres as the crow flies, the herring gull,
the cormorant with dried wings. Sixty-four against the current.
Three point two kilometres an hour, slower than a winter housefly
bumbling against your window

july 10/RUNBIKESWIM

2.5 miles
2 trails
71 degrees
dew point: 67

Sticky, but feels cooler because of the cloud cover. Felt relaxed and able to keep running without stopping. Wore my bright yellow shoes, which seem to not be hurting my feet/calves as much. The river was a light gray-blue, the trees dark green. Heard voices near the ravine — was it the workers finishing the new trail? Also heard the clicking and clacking of ski poles up above near the road.

Several trucks and workers in and around the house that used to have the poetry window (it hasn’t had a poem for more than a year). I wonder where the poetry people went?

The tree is still across the winchell trail. Every time I encounter it I’m cautious, looking out for people coming the other way, hidden behind its branches. Today, there were 2 people, but they were paying attention and waited for me to pass. Thanks!

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
80 degrees / 78 degrees

Biked with Scott to the lake. Nice! No scary moments. I felt confident and didn’t once question where I was going or where the trail was or if that thing ahead of me was a crack or not. Loud birds. A car not knowing how to drive in a round-a-bout. High creek water under the echo bridge. An ultimate frisbee game in the field between the duck and echo bridges. Slanting light. Kids wading in the creek.

swim: 3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
79 degrees

Another orange buoy gone, replaced with a green one. Only one left. For 11 years, seeing the orange buoy has been my thing. I’ve dreamed about them, written poems about them, and now they’re being replaced with green buoys. That’s okay, but I will miss them and all of my orange thoughts.

The water was a little rougher. Not too rough, more like gentle rocking. Some stray vines, lots of breathing only to my right side. Difficult to see the buoys. Recited my Alice Oswald poems as I swam and thought about lifting the lid and shutting it again and the sky jumping in and out. During the second half of the third loop, I stopped in the middle of the lake just to see what it was like. So quiet and wonderful. I couldn’t hear anything from the sky or the beach or other swimmers. Very cool.

Sparkle friends, bubbles. an orange glow off to the side, marble legs, ghostly milfoil, blue sky with a few clouds. Above: blue water, below: a light greenish-blue. An interesting effect: looking up blue, down below green.

A great swim. I feel strong and free and grateful to be moving and pushing my body. Big shoulders, no calf cramps, no numb/tingling fingers.

july 9/RUN

3.75 miles
river road, north/south
70 degrees
humidity: 74%

Summer! Not the easiest running with the heat, but it’s beautiful by the gorge. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker and he wished me a happy birthday again!

10 Things

  1. a coxswain’s voice below me
  2. a very loud bird across the road, trilling not screaming
  3. a sea and sky of green in the tunnel of trees
  4. a woman walking down the center of the path, gesturing to herself
  5. the two big cracks on the stretch of path just north of the trestle have been filled in with dirt
  6. orange cones and orange spray paint surround the cracks to warn pedestrians
  7. looking through a gap in the trees, seeing the air above the gorge, feeling so open and peaceful
  8. an orange day lily on the edge of the trail
  9. empty benches
  10. the sliding bench looks like it has slid more

I stopped to take a few pictures of the bench:

sliding bench / 9 july 2025

During the run and after, I recited AO’s lines from Nobody about the microscopic insects in the eye who speak Greek. Such a great poem! And such a great poem to memorize!