5.5 miles ford loop 35 degrees / feels like 18 wind: 18 mph / gusts: 29 mph
Brr. I was underdressed this morning in only one long-sleeved shirt, a vest, tights, shorts, stocking cap, gloves. It was the wind that made it feel cold. Running north and east it blew into me. It was especially bad on the ford bridge. Even with the wind, a great run. Sun! Shadows! The feeling of spring!
Some of the run was hard, some of it wasn’t. A little bit of unfinished business, legs that were sometimes sore and heavy. Does it have to do with the iron pill I’m taking? I am not anemic, but on the very low end of ferritin stores — and have been for 4 or more years now — so I’m getting serious with trying to increase my iron. A pill everyday, first thing in the morning with a grapefruit. No coffee or other food for at least an hour. Hopefully my ferritin will increase a lot so I don’t have to get an expensive iron infusion. And hopefully that increased ferritin will make it easier for me to run longer because Scott and I signed up for the marathon in October again!
10 Things
a siren — off in the distance, then closer, closer, then almost right behind me, then stopped — the closer it got, the more distorted the siren became — I wonder who/what needed this emergency truck?
a dirt trail behind a bench and railing at the bottom of the summit hill that led to a delightfully open view of the river and the west bank
running over the lake street bridge, wind on water, a scaled surface, gray
bright blue sky with a few puffy clouds
an almost full parking lot at the monument, only 2 spots open
several groups of walkers with dogs, some emerging from the trails below the bluff, some entering them
the wind on the ford bridge! slow and steady, squaring my shoulders and leaning into it
goose honks under the ford bridge
empty benches
an interesting image of vine on the neighbor’s fence
fence / 27 march
holes
Yesterday I watched the clip with the caterpillar from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland and I started thinking more about language and letters and our relationship with words and meaning through reading.
O u e i o A
The scene begins with Alice peering through the leaves at a caterpillar smoking a pipe and singing the vowels. The vowels — the building blocks of language — is this cellular level of the english language? Taken on their own, apart from words and sentences and paragraphs, the vowels aren’t non-sense, but they offer very little sense. I found an old stencil of the alphabet that I inherited from my mom in a drawer yesterday. Could I stencil in the vowels in a way that didn’t look cheesy or ridiculous? I’m not sure.
A thought while I was running: I’m in the process of editing my poems, which involves erasing holes that contain words that I’m no longer using. What if those erased words, those ghosts, remained as traces, haunting the page? Almost like an after image? I’ve noticed that after staring at these dark holes on the page, they start to move around and appear in places they aren’t. (writing that last sentence, I’m reminded of Alice’s nonsense speech to her cat: nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t
A deconstructed amsler grid: an Amsler grid has 38 lines, not including the frame. I decided to use pieces of dried spaghetti and scatter 38 of them on top of 4 panel poem. I’m not sure what I will use in the final version. Sticks? Lines at strange angles drawn on the paper, over the holes and text? Here’s a picture of it.
holes 5 / wip
I had no plan for where the lines would go, I just dropped the spaghetti wherever — should there be a plan, or is haphazard better? Maybe I scatter the dried spaghetti haphazardly first, then replicate that with thick black lines on the actual poem? The only rules: 38 lines, all the same length.
Ok, I scattered the spaghetti and drew in the lines. Here’s what it looks like:
holes 5 wip 2
I just realized I only added 32 lines. I need to add 6 more. Are the lines dark enough? Does it make sense that they are a deconstructed amsler, or do I need to add in a more explicit reference to that somewhere on the poem?
Went to the dog park with FWA and Delia this morning. Chilly but sunny and still down in the floodplain. Beautiful. No snow, hardly any mud, lots of felled trees. Halfway in we encountered an awesome dog carrying a stick that was 3 times as wide as his head. His owner said, the governor is about 200 feet ahead. Last summer, I recalled watching a video of Gov. Walz being interviewed at the dog park, so I knew he came here. About 5 minutes later, there he was! Alone and friendly. Hello! Hi! Of course, I couldn’t see well enough to recognize him, but FWA could. I wish I could have seen that it was him. I would have told him thank you.
5 Dog Park Things / 5 Winchell Trail Things
a section of the river, sparkling in the sun
the bark of the giant felled tree that FWA and I have walked around all this year had been stripped recently — a huge section of the trunk was barkless and gleaming white
faint footprints through the small stretches of mud
a motorboat rumbling by, making waves that rushed onto the shore near Delia
a woodpecker knocking on some dead wood, another (or the same one?) laughing
shadows everywhere — trees, the fence, lamp posts
the winchell trail path was covered in dry leaves that made a delightful crunch as I ran over them
a steady stream of cars (at 3:30 pm)
empty benches
no snow, no puddles
2.8 miles river road / winchell / lena smith 46 degrees
A quick run — in time and distance and speed. I should have slowed it down; it would have been easier. It’s hard to slow down in my new shoes! I was tired and felt the beginnings of a side stitch a mile in — I ate a protein bar too soon.
Today has been an off day — not terrible, there were many good moments in the hike and the run. But I woke earlier than I should have and felt, for lack of better word, weird. Untethered, fuzzy, maybe a little woozy, tired.
holes
As I continue to work on my holes poems, it has emerged that a few things are present in all of five of them: a hole, that hole’s impact on how I read, my blind spot, and the Amsler grid.
Why the Amsler Grid?
it connects these hole poems with my last round of visual vision poems, mood rings, which take the shape of an amsler grid
it ties in with the larger theme of all of my visual vision poems: vision tests — first, the snellen charts, then the amsler grid
it gives a context for my vision loss and grounds it in within a scientific/medical model of seeing/not seeing
it offers another way to visualize my untethering from that model/logic of test/diagnosis
This 4th one is especially interesting to me. I’m imagining fun ways to play with the implosion or destruction or destabilizing of the sharp, stable, rigid lines of a grid. The lines coming loose, or the lines a ladder without rungs — no way out of the hole, the lines collapsing and being sucked into the black hole, the lines forming a new path, a break in the lines — a gap, a dash, a slash, a breaking out of the lines — an opening, an exit, a room a door unlocked. What could that look like as part of my erasure poem? I mean, what, with my very limited skills in visual art, could I make possible?
I think I need to watch Alice in Wonderland again — should I read it, too? The hole in my vision as Alice’s rabbit hole. A passing through to wonderland. One difference: for Alice, Wonderland is the opposite of sense or nonsense.
everything would be what it wasn’t
I’d like to take this idea of non-sense out of the binary, Sense/Nonsense, to imagine non-sense as being more than just not sense. What if non-sense was its own kind of sense, just like Nothing is not nothing but something outside of our logic or language or ability to name it. Or, like I say in Holes 4, “a nothing that is something not sharing its secrets.
a flash: as I was working on the above list, I suddenly thought about the debate over whether or not listening to an audio book was reading. Does reading only happen with eyes? I like to distinguish it this way: reading with my eyes and reading with my ears. After this thought, a further thought: what if I created a holes poem that wasn’t visual, but aural? I could pick one of the New Yorker stories/articles that you can listen to, and figure out a poem from that. How might that work?
I had intended to work on all of this today, but I was busy all day: a birthday week coffee run with RJP, the dog park with FWA, weekly shopping with Scott, a run + cooking and laundry and a nap.
sleep
I decided to use my Apple watch this week to monitor my sleep. I’m averaging 6 1/2 hours a night, which I think is good for me, but only “okay” for my sleep score. Maybe that’s because I’m waking up every 2 hours. I have to get out of bed and stretch or go to the bathroom or walk around for 10 or 20 or more minutes before falling back asleep again. A thought occurred to me: could my low vision be contributing to my sleep problems? I googled it and yes, it might:
Visual impairment can lead to disturbances in the circadian rhythm20 and exacerbate neuropsychiatric conditions such as anxiety and depression, ultimately impairing central nervous system functionality and contributing to the development of insomnia21. Existing research underscores the negative impact of visual impairment on sleep patterns. Studies conducted in Russia found that individuals with visual impairment had more than twice the odds of reporting insomnia symptoms compared to those without, with this association remaining significant even after adjusting for factors such as age and gender21. This finding further confirms the link between visual dysfunction and sleep disturbances. Community research in the U.S. suggested that older adults with visual impairment are more likely to experience various sleep issues, such as difficulty falling asleep, trouble staying asleep, early morning awakenings, and daytime sleepiness22. Additionally, such individuals often report increased disrupted sleep patterns and a higher prevalence of sleep/wake disturbances23.
But, this study studied different visual impairments than I have. What about cone dystrophy or macular degeneration, which has similar effects? I looked it up and found some articles that link it, but it’s mostly about anxiety over vision loss that cause the sleep disturbances. I know I have some anxiety about the final break, when none of my cone cells work and all of my central vision is gone, but I think the connection between sleeping and not seeing or seeing differently is more complicated for me. I’ll have to ask the ophthalmologist at my appointment next month.
Yesterday it was 76 degrees, today 36. I didn’t mind; everything was dry and clear and I was able to run on all the walking trails in my new blue shoes! Today it’s overcast and both bright — a white sky — and gloomy — everything dull and bare. Did I see any shadows? I don’t think so.
I felt strong, not quite like I could run for several hours without stopping, but at least believing that it is possible. I also felt untethered from the world, everything fuzzy and me, floating above it or outside of it.
10 Things
early on, another running passing me, their feet slap slap slaping the ground
several geese honking below the ford bridge
empty benches
two women stopped on the edge of the trail near the 42nd street parking lot, talking — I couldn’t hear what they were saying
heading up the wabun hill — no one else around, just me and the dirt and the dead leaves
running through wabun: several people playing frisbee golf, two little kids running around the course, giggling
lots of traffic on ford and the river road — cars moving fast, no sunday drivers today!
a man in a bright orange jacket, sitting on the edge, above a ravine, looking out at the river
the bright headlights of a car, giving off a purple glow
a sound across the river road and the grassy boulevard — a gobbling turkey or a yelling kid? Undetermined
holes
I’m working on another holes poem — Holes 5. I’m using an essay about Rian Johnson, “Mystery Man” in the November 17, 2025 issue. My only requirement for an essay is that it contains the word hole, either as the word itself, or as part of/within another word. When I searched in “Mystery Man” for hole I found 4 instances of it including, “my wHOLE perspective,” “wHOLE time,” and “the wHOLE process.” I’m thinking these will be frame of my poem, especially Hole Time and Hole Perspective. What is my perspective (how do I see) with and from within my vision hole?
another part of my method: In addition to requiring a chosen essay has at least instance of “hole,” I read the essay from back to front. I started with the last paragraph, jotting down any words that stood out to me, then I read the second to last paragraph, then the third to last, and so on. It was a strange experience. I kept finding myself wondering, when I read a name I didn’t recognize, if I had missed the introduction/description of the name, then I remembered that I was reading back to front, from an assumption of familiarity to a not-knowingness (or not knowing yet-ness).
Here is a selection of words and phrases I jotted down:
bookshelf
stone
let me
still
strings
filters
window
flash
beauty
gathered
convivial
ends
spectrum
unexplainable
gesture
earthiness
underside
gnarled roots of a tree
feel
loop er
limitations / limit s
making diagrams with straws
an older version
flock
singular
(un) locked room
mind / mind’s eye / eye
tidy solution
make sense of it all
some measure of control over an uncontrollable world
the world has gone mad
center
puzzle
watch ed
the satisfaction of seeing
firelit
delight
smug
cringe
between
it seemed dusty
hypothetical
enters
throuhout
leap
a ghost
nobody
flock
vision
get in the way
framework
scam
everything
(r) ambling
story
distance
slanted
attention
made
backward
moving around
wonder
read
what is this?
slip away
lept
feeling trapped
peculiar
sunshine
looming
house
couldn’t see
covered in string
over
This essay is five pages long, so I’ll have to figure that out — all 5 pages, or 4 to make it fit more evenly? Or even less?
4.3 miles minnehaha falls and back 44 degrees 10% puddles
Spring! Sun! Sharp shadows! Clear paths with far less puddles! I felt strong and satisifed and at ease in my body. Well, mostly at ease. Because it’s messy out by the gorge, I wore an old pair of shoes — the ones that don’t quite work. Sometimes my gait felt awkward, my feet not hitting the ground in the right spot or in the right way.
Marveled at the river’s surface as I ran above it. So beautiful with its frozen surface. In the past, I’ve described the surface as vast or barren or eerie, surreal or otherworldly, but today other words came to mind: still, frozen, fixed, unmoving, deadened, paused, suspended. Yes! I think these words better describe its strange beauty for me. Looking at it is like looking at a film still. Looking at it feels like everything is paused, suspended in time.
10 Things
gushing falls — I could hear their loud descent and see their white foam
looking down at the oak savanna, tall, slender, bare branches mixed with their shadows to make a mess of lines on the snow — how much of it was actual trees, how much shadow? I couldn’t tell
water dripping fast and strong over the limestone edges in the ravine at 42nd street
empty benches
a guy walking with a small dog and looking at his phone
someone biking near the falls playing some mellow music out of speakers
taking off my sweatshirt, running with bare arms, seeing a walker with bare arms too
sirens in the distance, a loud, sustained whistle
the walking trails are still covered in snow
the gutter that was gushing water yesterday now only has trickles
Off and on throughout the run, I recited Alice Oswald’s “The Story of Falling,” sometimes reciting it in my head, sometimes out loud.
Holes
I’ve mapped some more of Holes 4 and . . . it’s a lot. Will this just look like an ugly, jumbled mess? Yesterday, talking through this with Scott, he said something like, do what serves the poem and the meaning you are trying to convey (or the effect you are trying to achieve). In terms of meaning, the words of the first section of the poem are about what I see instead of a gaping hole: shimmering, fizzy, ephemeral or elusive (hard to see, fleeting) things: snow flake marble dust, seltzer fizz, a nothing that is something not sharing its secrets. Perhaps these ephemeral things have come loose from what bound them to “normal” sight and its monitoring through tests like the amsler grid; it’s where you dwell when normal sight is not longer possible. So maybe the unraveling occurs prior to this hole? Yes, the unraveling (and vision of amsler grid as broken strings happens in 2 and 3, Does that mean that Holes 4 is all disconnected free-floating words/phrases? If so, how to make it possible for others to read it? I could place the poem near the center, around the gaping hole. I could also number the pages/sections and mark each word with a page number? Yes, I like this!
And hours later, I’m thinking more of using a distorted Amsler Grid at the center of Holes 4, and the black hole that the grid is collapsing into is the shape of blind spot.
Another mini project: can I learn how to draw decent-enough eyeballs — pupil and iris only?
amsler ideavery rough eyepoem text
Get Out ICE
This flyer about the next No Kings march came up on Facebook from Minnesota’s Lt. Gov Peggy Flanagan (and hopefully our next governor?!):
“In Minnesota, we’ve seen the federal government at its worst — and showed the world how to fight back.
Now, I’m honored that the flagship No Kings protest will be held here in the Twin Cities. Together, we’ll show Donald Trump that we don’t do kings.”
NO KINGS TWIN CITIES VOL. 3. Joan Baex Jane Fonda Maggie Rogers. March 28, 12 pm. March then rally at the State Capital.
2.3 river road, south / lena smith boulevard, north 15 degrees / feels like 0 50% snow-covered
Many of the sidewalks were completely bare and dry, almost all of the trail was covered in slick snow. In some stretches, the trail was covered with chunks of snow from the snow plows that had just passed by. Running south, with the sun and the wind at my back, and on the short strips of bare pavement, it felt good. Then I ran through a puddle. I didn’t notice that my foot was soaked for several minutes, but when I did I decided I should head home; it was cold enough that I was (mildly) concerned for my wet toes. Good call, past Sara! When I got home, one of my toes was burning.
10 Things
bright BLUE sky
the sounds of shoveling and scraping and snow-blowing all around
at the end of each block, I encountered an almost knee-high wall of snow where the plow had come through
the surface of the river looked eerie and strange, pale and spotted with chunks of ice
no kids’ voices from the school playground: for preK – 5th graders, school was closed, for 6th – 12th graders e-learning — that would suck! give the big kids a snow day too, I say!
the rumble of two plows approaching, first a small one, then BIG one — I moved to the far side to avoid the spray of snow
I encountered a few other runners but no skiers or bikers
head north, I ran into a wall of wind — ugh! howling and biting
I bet it was pretty and looked very winter wonderland-y — I couldn’t tell you because I was too busy trying not to slip!
if it hadn’t been for the terrible wind, my wet toes, and the slick and uneven path, it would have been a great run — even with the bad conditions, I had some wonderful moments outside
mind-body connection
On last week’s episode of the podcast Nobody Asked Us, Kara Goucher talked about how she started taking a low dose of some (unnamed) anti-anxiety medication and it’s helping with her dystonia (“a movement disorder that causes the muscles to contract. This can cause twisting motions or other movements that happen repeatedly and that aren’t under the person’s control” — Mayo Clinic). She has discussed many times on the podcast how dystonia has made it very difficult for her to run, especially on pavement.
mind body connection — watch until 15:58
This mind-body connection is fascinating to me. Does her anti-anxiety med just make her more relaxed, or does it do something more to the brain — and maybe the neural mapping of her movements?
HOLES 4
Today I’m mapping my words on a copy of the “Still Life” article. I”m trying something different. In Holes 1, 2, and 3, I taped the paper together first and then found the words and drew the holes over and around the words. Today, with such a long article, I’m finding the words and drawing holes around them first, before I tape the pieces together. Will that make a difference? Not sure, but I might switch around the order of the pages to shape how the holes look together.
I drew and colored in holes on 3 out of the 8 pages, and tried adding some color to a few. I’m wondering if some of the holes should messier, with less defined borders or jagged, rough. I have limited ability in drawing; can I push myself some more? Here’s an image of one of the pages:
One last run on clear paths before it snows tonight. The forecast predicts more than a foot of snow tonight. It will probably melt fast, which will be as much as more of a nightmare than the actual snow. Walls of snow, then mush, then jagged ice, then little lakes and puddles. Oh well, I bet it will be pretty and I might get to see someone skiing down the street!
Today’s run was good. My left knee was a bit stiff and grumbly, but otherwise I felt good. In the last mile I started to feel relaxed, with my legs and arms and the space around me in sync. I was moving through the air, hardly noticing when my feet touched down — the space between beats! I love when I run like this!
10 Things
honk honk honk honking geese all around the gorge, 1: down the hill, under the ford bridge, a lone geese floating in the middle of the river
geese, 2: I heard their honks first, behind me, then beside me, then in front of me — finally saw them: 2 geese flying low
overheard: one runner to another: it didn’t even taste like salmon!
the bells of st. thomas
someone in an bright orange jacket down below, on the stretch of the winchell trail that I call the edge of the world
the river surface below the ford bridge was dotted with bright white slabs of ice — a strange sight; I wish I would have brought my phone today to take a picture!
an empty parking lot at the locks and dam
empty benches
traces of snow in the grass
a laughing pileated woodpecker
HOLES
Flipping through my past New Yorkers, I found an article from the 9 june 2025 issue that looks promising. It’s called “Still Life” in the print issue and “Greenwood Cemetery’s Living Dead” in the online version. The only test for whether I can use it or not: it must have at least one use of the word hole, or of a word that contains hole. This is a long article, so I’d hope there’s at least one hole, but is there? Yes, 4!
Medina extended a tape measure into the hole and said, “Six-ten.”
Usmanov and I stared down into the gaping hole, its walls marbled with grass roots.
went to Green-Wood almost every day for weeks this spring, and the most unnerving thing I saw was an enormous hunched figure, wearing a cloak, with a gaping hole for a face.
Scientists were only starting to piece together that contaminated water, not flawed character, caused cholera; that smallpox probably originated in rodents;
I’m surprised that an article about a cemetery only has 4 mentions of holes. Isn’t a cemetery more than half holes?!
some notes as I read through the article:
One, I am reading it backwards, section by section. Two, one rule in the cemetery: no skylarking. I looked it up, skylarking is frolicking and playing jokes on others. It’s also the name of one of my favorite XTC albums. Three, reading the text, which I’ve put in a pages document, I’m noticing a few things about the text: the text surrounding the word or phrase that I can see sometimes looks like it is scribbled out. Sometimes it looks like it has sparkles around it that are moving — not quite flashing. The text always seems to be vibrating. How can I translate that into a texture on my blind spot Four, as I read through the sections, I jotted down words or phrases that stood out to me:
entrance flaming torch welcoming appears mirror ink you’re never alone you’re never disconnected love full of little secrets inhabit center recreate experience remaining time offer everyone gently between seeing moment you look at space, you look at background, you look at sky hope visit already thinking I don’t know why there was room about to open up turn and follow her gaze staring hands waste bigger picture across threshold neglect and care art cone cell
heart needed landscape fizz snow flake marble dust seltzer balance fills up keeps the grass space enough out of the water upkeep grounds public spaces essentail failed possible efficiency requires can stand on a sidewalk people who never look up out of room true mapping crevice easy circular elipses inside walls outside dark happen here nothing pale-blue cluttered wasn’t a place searched
certainunmarked is now used other-siders skylarking exhume make when you see in place of a road the word down through the plywood a plank settling glacial till earth inches from a layer of turf dirt unstratified jumble of sands, cobbles, and clays caves in on itself all-weather like a bird bench what do you want stone slabs a door uncut grave terrain geologically life this is a place to inter the dead no good place to put all the boies walked around faces believing piece together rotting disease inspired crowded
By the way, as I write, the snow has started. We officially have a blizzard warning that begins around 10 pm and lasts until Monday morning.
One of the reasons I picked this article is because I wanted more land language, like grass and dirt and dust and terrain and stone slabs and sands, cobblestones, clays, caves and glacial till. I want to connect the hole in my vision with the gorge — as a landscape, and a very big hole. I think of it as a powerful metaphor for my vision loss and what comes during and after. Of course, the gorge is also the actual place I go to for my writing practice.
The word plank stood out to me because of ED’s “I felt a funeral in my Brain” — and then a plank in reason broke/and I dropped down and down — I think of ED also with the stone slabs and the dark.
And, I like crevice and opened up, inside, outside, this is a place to inter the dead, room — a gaping hole, a threshold between,
I also like fizz and snow flake marble dust, which is what the words (and what I) sometimes feel like — fly, like a bird, sky — the words, cluttered, crowded and between walls
my eyes: a graveyard for dead cone cells
you look at space you look at sky you look at words and don’t see the gaping hole and its graveyard for dead cone cells you see snow flake marble dust seltzer fizz a nothing that is something
I’d like to keep going, but it’s time to get ready for Scott’s birthday dinner!
Ran over the lake street bridge and to the monument today. When was the last time I ran this route? Just checked, it was 5 nov 2025. Wow! Of course, part of the reason why I haven’t run over there is because of the winter; they don’t plow the sidewalk on the bridge, and St. Paul, where the monument is, doesn’t plow their trails as well as Minneapolis. But another reason is definitely ICE; I’ve been staying closer to home with my runs because it feels safer.
Today’s run was good; I felt (mostly) strong, although my legs/feet are sore from wearing the shoes that make them hurt. It was windy and cold on the bridge, but it was beautiful. Steel gray water, open and high enough to hide the sandbars. Scattered stretches of the east and west banks were glowing with white snow. The sun was dulled by a thin layer of clouds.
10 Things
drip drip drip drip — the steady drip of water falling off the bridge near the east steps
graffiti — pink and orange and black block letters under the bridge
I only encountered 1 or 2 people over the bridge, both walking
the bells of st. thomas chiming at noon! 15 minutes later, at 12:15
running above shadow falls I glimpsed a dark flash of something — a tree? no, a person
with several more glances I realized the person was not hiking but running
they were nearing the worn dirt trail that climbs up and out of the ravine
St. Paul has replaced the port-a-potty at the edge of the monument parking lot — there is much less graffiti on this new one, and the door closes all the way — hooray!
near the edge of an overlook on the east bank, staring out at the other bluff and down at the water — a hiker emerges
a plaque on the bench for, “what a woman” Sharon. She was born 2 weeks after my dad was in 1941 and died in 2002 — so young!
Holes
Currently, I have 3 Holes erasure poems. Holes 1 is about my uneasy fellowship with the word. Holes 2 is about how the hole (my blind spot) makes it unprofitable to have faith in the visible. And Holes 3 is about falling through the hole into “who knows where”, on the border between the real and surreal. I need to do at least one more hole about the small holdout-of-a-hole in the very center of my vision that enables me to still read (even if that reading is slow and sometimes unreliable).
Tomorrow, RJP and I go shopping for textiles and textures at the Stashery, so today I’m working on mapping out Holes 3. I’m using “Me, Myself, and I: Helen Oyeyemi’s Novel of Cognitive Dissonance” from The New Yorker, August 25, 2025. Here is the version I just drafted:
swap the dead-eyed liturgy of doomed vision with shadowed acts that leap for the light (OR flee from the light?)
read sentences sliced in half with strangeness each one glitch ing enough to let in the improbable
fall through the hole your reading eyes find / or your reading finds / or your eyes find and land in a logic of blur and almost
Is this too many words to easily/cleanly map out? Let’s find out! And if not, let’s shift the form to make it work! — several minutes pass — Okay, I mapped it, and it seems like too many words. I think I’ll save my “darling” — the line that started it all about swapping the dead-eyed liturgy for another project — a liturgy of shadowed acts and the periphery! Anyway, I’ll try to keep the rest of the poem, and figure out the rest of holes is a project tomorrow morning.
Get Out ICE and Ice
The other day I wondered when the ice would be gone from Lake Nokomis. This morning, Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board offered a prediction!
Minneapolis Parks Water Quality staff have tracked “ice off” dates on city lakes for decades. Ice off is declared when a lake is substantially free of ice after being fully frozen.
We’re probably not setting any records like 2018 or 2024, which dominate the record books. Staff estimate we could see ice off on small lakes like Powderhorn and Loring as soon as this weekend. It will probably be a few more weeks for larger lakes.
Will the HUGE winter storm we’re expecting on Saturday night and all day Sunday impact the ice off date? BTW, I’m pretty sure that they used to refer to this as the ice out date; I think they’ve changed it because of the very negative association with ICE. I checked past entries on my log, and yes, that was what it was called. Negative association aside, I like ice out better than ice off.
Snow. A dusting last night, then a little more in the morning. An inch? Enough to make everything white. I was happy to be done with winter, but I don’t mind the snow. Since past snow has already melted and the ground has already warmed up, the snow didn’t stick around. By the time I went out for my run in the afternoon, almost everything was clear. The run didn’t feel easy, but I pushed through several difficult moments and kept going. Hooray for mental victories!
I listened to the dripping and gushing and the wheel whooshing as I ran south, 2 playlists — “Bunnies and Rabbits” and “the Wheelin’ Life” — as I ran back north.
10 Things
sh sh sh — the shifting grit under my feet
the wet pavement was shining and sparkling in the sun — so bright sometimes that I thought it was slick ice
entering minnehaha park, the parking lot was empty
exiting the park 10 or more minutes later, there was one car at the far end of the parking lot
the creek was rushing
the sidewalk on the bridge just above the falls was wet and clear — last week someone had chalked a long message on it, which I couldn’t read because of my bad vision
on the walk just before I started, I noticed a small black bird skittering along the grass — it had a small circle of white feathers below its eye
a runner in a bright red jacket stopped at the Rachel Dow Memorial Bench, a minute later they ran down a hill on the winchell trail
only 1 or 2 small patches of ice, a few puddles
I almost didn’t remember this one! — three people on the bridge over the falls, looking over the creek side. One, to the others, pointing down at the creek: look, there’s 75 cents! One of the others, joked (I hope): better go down there and get it!
Rabbit Recap
Slowly but surely, I’m getting to the end of my rabbit recap, but not today! See past rabbit recaps here: 9 march, 6 march, 5 march, and 4 march.
14 — 25 march 2026
Here’s a useful explanation of some reasons why I do monthly challenges about new topics, like rabbits (or wind or dirt, etc.):
And what’s the point of all of this? Following the rabbit down the rabbit hole is a wonderful distraction. It is also an excellent opportunity to learn. And to learn more about rabbits, which leads to caring about them as living things and as symbols. This caring might (is) enabling me to open up a closed part of myself (closed = strong dislike of rabbits). And it is helping me to think more broadly and specifically about the impacts of humans and human encroachment on environments and the consequences of that encroachment for humans and non-humans. Plus, all (or any) of it could inspire new poems.
A quick summary of some rabbits references and reveries: the killer bunny in Monty Python; Bunny Lebowski; Rabbit in Red matchbook from Halloween; Jimmy Stewart’s invisible bunny in Harvey; Max and Ruby; the PBS doc The Pill; Rabbit in Winnie-the-Pooh; the Cadbury Creme Egg Bunny; The Runaway Bunny; fix me hausenpffefer right away!
Rabbits in Diane Seuss:
excerpt from backyard song / Diane Seuss — I LOVE this whole poem. I’d like to use it as inspiration for a hole poem and a bunny poem!
Uncorked, I had a thought: I want the want I dreamed of wanting once, a quarter cup of sneak-peek at what prowls in the back, at what sings in the wet rag space behind the garage, back where the rabbits nest
excerpt from Her first poem had a rabbit / Diane Seuss — I want to bring in the optical illusion of the bunny and duck + the idea of what seems mild but is really wild
She tended toward rabbits back then. Toward the theoretically mild
that are really wild. Like ducks on a pond that is really a moon
New Yorker Experiment: A hole through the bottom of the known world
Today I worked on the template for my hole poem that erases the “Whisker Wars.” It has some of my blind spot, some big circles (from a iron pill cap), some medium sized-circles (lexipro cap), small (a quarter), and extra small (a penny). I want to create texture for the blind spots but leave the circles alone as pencil/gray.
a hole through the bottom of the known world
My choice of blind spots vs. circles, and the size of the circles, was mostly decided by what would fit where, but there might be some room to play around with some of it. I’ll think about it some more.
The words: nothing still / details drift like snow / cut off heads with pewter-colored faces float / a hole through the bottom of the known world / here it’s unprofitable to have faith in the visible — should it be what is visible?
added an hour later: I realized a further clarification on the idea of the hole and holes. The blind spot creates a hole in my vision, an absence that has created an uneasy fellowship with the world and made it unprofitable to have faith in the visible. But, there is also the small hole that remains in the otherwise dark blind spot that enables me to still read — it’s a small hole, and it’s getting smaller, but it’s still there. I’m noticing that my whisker wars poem offers many different sizes of holes depending on how many words I’m trying to fit in it. I need to have a poem that highlights that tiny hole holdout — ooo, holdout is a word in the whiskey wars article. Should I do a completely different poem using the same text?
Get out ICE
Each morning a local journalist, Sean Snow, offers updates on what’s happening in Minnesota, both what ICE and those in state and federal government that support ICE are doing, and how people and their communities are fighting back. I read them on Facebook, but he also posts them on Threads, Instagram, Tiktok, and YouTube. Today one of his examples
— sitting at the dining room table, drinking my coffee while I write this, I just heard a long goose fly by — honk honk —
was about “a real act of public memory” n St. Paul:
Testimony Builds The Record: Minnesota residents, advocates, and families testified Tuesday in St. Paul before the chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights about what they experienced during Operation Metro Surge. Star Tribune reported that people described racial discrimination, abusive detention conditions, treatment of protesters, and the deaths of two citizens, all in hopes of pushing the commission toward a formal investigation. This was not a final ruling or a courtroom win. But it was a real act of public memory and accountability on a day when it would have been easy for the country to start looking away.
Another SPRING day! It felt so warm that halfway through the run, I took off my pull-over and ran with bare arms. No gloves, nothing covering my ears. Even with less layers I was warm. The walking path was clear enough that I was able to run past the Welcoming Oaks and the tunnel of trees. There were a few puddles and chunks and sheets of ice and for one stretch near the lowest point, snow covered almost the entire path. A few times my foot slipped a little but never enough to make me worry I’d fall.
I felt good and my legs felt strong. I was able to run up 3/4 of the franklin hill before I stopped for a walk break. The only part of me that hurt was one of my toes on my right foot. I was wearing different shoes than I normally do — a Saucony Ride instead of a Brooks Ghost — and something about this version of the has never worked for me. I’ve had these shoes for more than a year — 2 years? — and they always cause something to hurt, like my toe or my calf.
10 Spring Things
open river! down in the flats, when I could get very close to it, I watched the small spots of foam as they slowly floated downstream
sh sh sh — the sound of my feet running over the grit on the edge of the trail
good morning! hello friends! — greeting the Welcoming Oaks
the loud and steady sound of water rushing down over the ledges in the ravine
a woman running in shorts and a jog bra
mud, on the edge of the path — once, as I turned a corner, I stepped in it and almost twisted something
whoosh! car wheels speeding through a puddle, water flying up
along with the mud, bare dirt, some grass
last week, running under the franklin bridge when it was even wetter than today, I noticed a black jacket on the ground, soaked. Today that same jacket was hanging from a branch, dry
like yesterday, where there was ice on the path, there were also dead leaves — suddenly realized: someone from Minneapolis Parks had most likely spread the leaves as a natural way to make the path less slippery (as opposed to ice-melt and all of its chemicals)
Rabbits in Art
1 — Rabbit by Jeff Koons
I’m fairly certain that I’ve seen and/or heard of Koons’s Rabbit, but I only thought of it for this “rabbits in art” exploration when it came up in my google search.
DETAILS
Jeff Koons (b. 1955) Rabbit stainless steel 41 x 19 x 12 in. (104.1 x 48.3 x 30.5 cm.) Executed in 1986.D
You can find the image, both close-up and to scale, on Christies auction house site. I’m choosing not to post the image in this entry because of copyright concerns. Even though my use of the image should easily fall under fair use.1
In 2019, this controversial sculpture sold for $91 million. Christies’ page for this auction item has a lot of good information about the sculpture — it’s history, significance, probably all of the citations to articles about it that you might ever need.
Here’s the opening paragraph of Christies’ essay about it:
Since its creation in 1986, Jeff Koons’s Rabbit has become one of the most iconic works of 20th-century art. Standing at just over three feet tall, this shiny steel sculpture is at once inviting and imposing. Rabbit melds a Minimalist sheen with a naïve sense of play. It is crisp and cool in its appearance, yet taps into the visual language of childhood, of all that is pure and innocent. Its lack of facial features renders it wholly inscrutable, but the forms themselves evoke fun and frivolity, an effect heightened by the crimps and dimples that have been translated into the stainless steel from which it has been made. Few works of art of its generation can have the same instant recognizability: it has been on the cover of numerous books, exhibition catalogues and magazines; a monumental blow-up version even featured in the 2007 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. For an artist such as Koons, who is so focused on widening the sphere in which art operates and communicates, Rabbit is the ultimate case in point.
Childhood — all that is pure and innocent. Fun and frivolity.
And here’s what Jeff Koons says about it, cited in Kurt Varnadoe’s essay for Art Forum, 1986: Jeff Koons’s Rabbit:
This snarky little thumper has other stories to tell too. Koons said, “To me the Rabbit has many meanings. It is a symbol of the playboy, of fantasy and also of resurrection.” (The joining of those last two terms alone can provide food for long thought, or skepticism.) “But to me, the Rabbit is also a symbol of the orator making proclamations, like a politician. A masturbator, with a carrot to the mouth.”
I mentioned Monty Pythons killer rabbit last week. It comes up again in this article about drawings of bad bunnies in medieval art.
Rabbits can often be found innocently frolicking in the decorated borders or illuminations of medieval manuscripts, but sometimes, for reasons unknown, these adorable fluffy creatures turn into stone-cold killers. These darkly humorous images of medieval killer bunnies still strike a chord with modern viewers, always proving a hit on social media and popularised by Monty Python and the Holy Grail’s Beast of Caerbannog, ‘the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!’.
I like this explanation for why bunnies were depicted as killers:
In real life, rabbits and hares are docile prey animals. But in decorated initials and marginalia, medieval artists often depicted ‘the world turned upside down’, where roles are reversed and the impossible becomes the norm. So here, rabbits are violent hunters hellbent on punishing anyone who has committed crimes against rabbit-kind.
Last week when I mentioned Monty Python, I didn’t know they were referencing a trend in medieval art/manuscripts of rabbits behaving badly, I thought they made it up as a joke!
I think it might be time to synthesize/summarize some of this bunny information. But, that’s a project for this afternoon! Now it’s time for day two of my New Yorker Found Poem experiment!
“Fair use allows limited, unlicensed use of copyrighted images for purposes like criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. It is a legal defense based on four factors: purpose (e.g., non-profit, educational), nature of the work, amount used, and effect on the market” (source). I have been unfairly fined before, for using an image on an academic blog (over $700 in 2012). ↩︎
“It is rare for a domesticated animal to be both considered food and a treasured pet” (source). ↩︎
New Yorker Found Poem Experiment #2
10:30 am — Before starting to work with an article, I decided to sort through RJP’s old markers and find ones that still work. At some point during the process, I realized that this looking through old markers was making me dizzy; something about it was too much for my brain and my cone-starved eyes. I stopped sorting. I should have taken a break, instead I did something else. A few minutes later, I felt woozy and needed to sit down. My hands were shaking and my legs felt tingly. My pulse was fine, but my blood pressure was elevated — 158. I think I was having a mild panic attack, triggered by the dizziness from my bad vision. Boo. It seems as if my anxiety is back. I had a nice stretch of a year+ without it. It also seems like I will need to be more careful with how I use my eyes. Too much trying to closely see something might trigger another one of these. Am I right in my assessment?
I am noticing that my vision has deteriorated more. It’s even harder to recognize the faces of actors on tv, harder to see my kids’ faces when they talk to me. Am I getting closer to the complete end of central vision?
Because of this incident, I did not start my second experiment this moring. Should I now, at 2:10 pm, or will it trigger more dizziness and anxiety?
Yes, I did it. I need to make sure I test out/find the right tools and be more deliberate in what I’m doing. I’m very messy — which is mainly because of my vision, but not completely. I’ve always been an almost and a that’s good-enough girl.
These poems are from a July 2025 article, Money Talks:
1 — Let me ask you a question
Let me ask you one questions
I like the idea of this, with all of the questions marks, but it is really sloppy and it doesn’t highlight the text that I’m using, “Let me ask you a question.” I would try this one again, but if I plan it more carefully and work on my question marks!
2 and 3
2: In the middle of a story, you are either in or you are out 3 — About nothing: it is a junk drawer for everything nobody ever heard of
Again, messy and poorly executed. I like that I used less words than the last one. I need to figure out a way to draw that I can do with my unreliable vision. It’s hard to see enough to color within the box or to draw straight lines, even with a ruler!
I like the idea of nothing as a junk drawer. It might make even more sense if I found a much, and could make nothing into nothing much.
I am listening to HCR’s politics chat for today and she said, as she often does, OOPSIE POOPSIE. I love when she says that!
Spring-y! Sun, above freezing, and a clear walking path! I was able to take the trail that dips below the road between the double bridge and locks and dam no. 1! Also: birds and grass and no gloves. A good run. I feel more power in my legs and able to run for longer without stopping. I heard kids on the playground, the call of a bird that sounded mechanical — similar to the strange, high-pitched siren I heard earlier today, and the doppler effect on the light rail bells as I ran south to the falls. I heard Panic at the Disco, Radiohead, Gene Autry, and The Jazz Crusaders on the way back home.
Speaking of hearing, as I write this at my desk, I can hear a woodpercker outside my window pecking on a tree in our front yard that I think is dead or dying. Every peck is saying, right right right right (you’re) right. Ugh! Is it time to call a tree service?
At some point during the run I thought about I wasn’t thinking about much of anything. Then I thought, the purpose of today’s run is not to work out a writing problem, or encounter some inspiration, but to move and breathe, feel the sun on my face, and be by the river.
10 Things
a thin skin of ice on the river
larger areas of the creek open with dark water, some snow stretching out from the banks
an occupied bench! someone is sitting on the bench at the 44th street parking lot
overheard: some guy talking to his two friends about something being only 2 loops — when I passed them a few minutes later, I noticed they had on shorts and running shoes on
that same truck that seemed to be hiding under the bridge last week was back again today — why?
a few parts of the trail that still had any ice or snow were also covered with dead leaves
enough snow had melted so that I could cross the road and walk on a wide strip of grass instead of mud and snow
vision mistake: up ahead of me, it looked like a truck was parked on the path, blocking the way. I crossed over to the parking lot then immediately realized the curve in the trail made it look like the truck was blocking it, but it wasn’t. Oops
more people near the falls, more cars parked in the parking lot
stopped at Rachel Dow Memorial bench to admire the view through the slender tree trunks and to take a few pictures.
sitting beneath the bench looking up at the trees / 2 march 2026
more rabbits bunnies
It started on 20 feb, this occupation with bunnies.1 When will it end? Not today! Here are some more bunny things I’d like to archive:
1— buuuuunnies
In footnote 1, I mention that bunny is fun to say. That might be partly because when I say it, I think of how Tom Haverford says it on Parks and Recreation2:
2 — Boynton Bunnies
At first he was skeptical, but I’ve managed to get Scott thinking about and noticing bunnies and bunny-related things everywhere! This morning he sent me an image someone posted on social media:
you say rabbits, and I say bunnies / you say comics, and I say funnies
Actually, I don’t say funnies — who says funnies? — but it worked for the reference to “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.” Is Sandra Boynton still popular in 2026? I remember her greeting cards in the 80s and her kids books in the aughts. What was the one with the cd/songs that FWA and RJP loved? did they love it? I can’t remember; I think they at least liked it, or was that just me who did? I think the book/album was Philadelphia Chickens.
In addition to sending me random bunny images he finds, Scott was willing to watch the Disney Alice in Wonderland, which was awesomely weird, and sadly could never be made now, I think. Some of the nonsense in it, which was fabulous, reads not as kooky kid imagination but as being under the influence of psychedelics. There was also this menacing edge to the characters Alice encounters: they seemed fun or dangerous at any given moment. Two examples: the flowers in the garden — that head Rose! — and Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum — doing fun acrobatics but also stopping Alice from leaving.
3 — the Bronze Bunny
Their official name is “Cottontail on the Trail” because they are a bronze statue of a cottontail and they are right on the minnehaha bike trail, but I always call them the bronze bunny. Other people call them the Minnehaha Bunny.
The sculpture has garnered the nickname of the “Minnehaha Bunny” from residents.[4] Children often climb on the sculpture and people who live nearby have frequently costumed and decorated it based on seasonal occasions or topical events such as leaving eggs by the sculpture during Easter or cladding the mouth of the sculpture with a large cloth face mask during the COVID-19 pandemic.
I’ve written about this bunny on here before. They’re 4.5 or so miles from my house so I only see them on bike rides and long runs when I am training for the marathon. Passing the bunny on a run is a big deal; it means that I’m fit enough to run for 10 miles or more.
This bunny was erected in 2002, but it seems like it’s been here much longer.
I’ve tried to say rabbits, but I just like bunnies better. I think it’s partly because of how it sounds as I say it. ↩︎
Finding and creating this clip took WAY longer than it should have. I kept at it because I was determined to get the clip, not because Tom saying “buuunnies” was worth it (I think I spelled buuuunnies with one n in my title, ugh), but because I wanted to figure this out. Before losing most of my cone cells it was so much easier to do stuff like this. ↩︎
Get Out Ice
Here’s an example of an existing group using their established community to provide mutual aid and support to people during the ICE occuption: How a Dungeons & Dragons meetup turned into mutual aid during ICE operations. Members have organized “know your rights” workshops, accompanied immigrants to appointments, coordinated food donations, and made barbecue for families in need.
This quotation fits with the erasure poem I’ve been working on this morning:
“In a story, you can be the underdog who defeats the big, bad, evil entity,” said D&D player Kat Hennan. “I think that having that kind of thought exercise and storytelling right now is extremely important.”
New Yorker Found Poetry Experiment, Day 1:
Picked a random old New Yorker. Found an interesting article, “The End of the Essay: What comes after A.I has destroyed college writing? / Hua Hsu. Put my watch timer on for 30 minutes.
Poem:
question: Has there ever been a time in human history when the arts could not offer hope and help us to be open to more possibilities? answer: Never
A good first try. It’s funny that I want to do these visual poems when I struggle so much to see the words or how to make the boxes and lines that I need, but something in me keeps persisting, so I’ll keep trying. Hopefully it will get easier.
It’s messy — and with my vision, it will always be. and I added an extra to that’s just floating out there, disconnected. It’s too busy with too many lines. But it was fun and challenging and I like the poem I came up with a response to an article about AI ruining college writing.
When I showed it to Fletcher, he liked it and said there were ways to refine it. I agree, but not to this poem. I wrote on the original essay and I don’t have another copy. The question: next time should I scan the essay before drawing on it, or is the risky (you only get one shot) approach part of the challenge and the fun?
experiment #1 / 2 march 2026
note: I also need to learn how to take better pictures of my work!
