Tag: 10 things

dec 1/RUN

5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
15 degrees / feels like 6
light snow

Brrr. I’m pretty sure that this is the coldest run of the season. I wore almost all of the layers: double tights, double gloves, double socks, a buff, a fleece cap, long-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, jacket. No frozen toes or fingers, only a few frozen eyelashes.

It was snowing lightly. I barely felt the flakes but I could see them collecting in the cracks of the path and on the road. Not slippery. When I reached the park I noticed faint paw prints on the path.

Passing the parking lot, 2 adults were trying unsuccessfully to calm down a kid losing it — did the kid not want to be at the falls, or did they not want to leave it?

By the gorge, the ground is a rich brown carpet of dead leaves and dirt. A few bushes — buckthorn? — seem to have new, bright green leaves. A runner passed me in a bright yellow vest, almost as bright as the crosswalk sign at 38th.

I noticed dark forms moving below me, on the winchell trail. A coyote or turkey or . . . ? Looking longer I finally saw 2 runners.

The river! Mostly white with wide slashes of exposed, dark water. The falls! Still gushing but covered in thick columns of ice. Winter is here.

All the steps at the falls and on the trails are still open. Will they close them this week?

Running south, between 42nd and 44th, I noticed a bench with an open view of the river and the other side. Decided I would stop on my way back north. I did. Beautiful. And right above the edge of the world.

10 Things

  1. a distracted squirrel in the middle of the trail — gathering a nut?
  2. a smoke smell on edmund, probably from a chimney
  3. a gently sloping hill leading down to the river just past the double bridge, filled with tree trunks and dead leaves
  4. mostly the river was white — ice covered with a thin layer of snow, but there were random patches of dark water. Some of them were thick slashes, others looked like geometric shapes — trapezoids, rectangles, triangles, but not a circle in sight
  5. voices below me — who is there? some hikers, deep in and beyond the winchell trail
  6. the small wood between the 44th street parking lot and the winchell trail, usually hidden, was exposed to reveal a short dirt path
  7. birds! not seen, but heard — sweet tweets and chirps, sounding like spring
  8. a fat tire with a faint, flickering headlight
  9. the fake bells from the light rail train, followed by some quick horn taps
  10. a woman reaching the falls overlook and exclaiming in delight and wonder — wow!

the start of another haunts section?

Before I went out for my run, I did a little research on the bike/walking trails along the river. Deeper digging is required. Maybe a trip to the central library, or an email? Anyway, I learned that they created paved trails above the gorge and beside the river parkway in the fall of 1973. The main trail I use is only 6 months older than me! That seems like it would make a good line for a section that features the trails, either just the paved ones above, or the ones below too.

Mostly the girl stays
above on a trail
as old as she is.
Paved in seventy
three, when gas prices
and an interest in
conservation were
high.

Here’s a wonderful poem from Carl Phillips:

Speak Low/ Carl Phillips (from Speak Low)

The wind stirred–the water beneath it stirred accordingly …
The wind’s pattern was its won, and the wter’s also. The
water in that sense was the wind’s reflection. The wind was,
to the water, what the water was to the light that fell there,
or appeared to fall, spilling as if the light were a liquid, or as
if the light and the water it spilled across

were now the same

It is true that the light, like the water, assumed the pattern of
what acted upon it. But the water assumed also the shape
of what contained it, while the light did not. The light seemed
fugitive, a restiveness, the less-than-clear distance between
everything we know we should do, and all the rest–all
the rest that we do stirring, as the wind stirred it, the water
was water–was a form of clarity itself, a window we’ve
no sooner looked through than we’ve abandoned it for what
lies past that: a view, and then what comes

into view, or might,

if we watch patiently enough, steadily–so we believe, wishing
for what, by now, even we can’t put a name to, but feel certain
we’ll recognize, having done so before. It olled, didn’t it,
just like harmlessness. A small wind. Some light on water.


nov 29/RUN

2.55 miles
2 trails
20 degrees / feels like 9

Today I hit my yearly goal of 1000 miles! It was cold, but not too cold. No frozen fingers or numb toes. I ran at 2:30 in the long, afternoon light. Wow — I love the light at this time in the season and the day. Why? Longer shadows, a feeling of everything slowing down, settling in, preparing to rest. I stayed up above as I ran south, then turned down to the entrance of the Winchell Trail on the way back north. The river was a wonderful purplish-blue and scaly from the wind. My legs felt sluggish, and my feet were sore on the uneven asphalt. I stopped briefly near the edge of the world to make note of the moment — the sun, lowering, purple-blue river, a steep slope, water falling from the sewer pipe. Not a slow drip, but a shimmering shower. Yes — I thought about a section of my poem and how my description of water as dripping from the pipe wasn’t the only way to describe it. Often, it’s more than drips.

10 Things

  1. a graceful roller skier. I don’t remember hearing their poles, just watching the way the relaxed and flowing rhythm of their arms and legs
  2. the river through the trees at the Horace Cleveland Overlook — purple, slight agitated from wind
  3. encountering a walker climbing the hill near Winchell, bundled up in a winter coat with his hood up
  4. my shadow — so tall! — in front of me, once she left the path and went into the woods
  5. the top railing of one section of iron fence which should be straight was curved in — what caused that to happen?
  6. the jingle-jangle of a dog collar somewhere
  7. dry leaves rustling in the brush beyond the trail
  8. the smell of smoke at the usual spot on edmund
  9. a tall person in a coat swinging up against the iron fence near the 38th street stairs
  10. someone on a hoverboard or a strange skateboard with a bright light on the front, moving fast along the trail — I thought skateboard because they seemed to moving like a skateboard across the path in gentle arcs

An Entrance/ Malena Mörling

For Max

If you want to give thanks
but this time not to the labyrinth
of cause and effect-
Give thanks to the plain sweetness of a day
when it’s as if everywhere you turn
there is an entrance-
When it’s as if even the air is a door-

And your child is a door
afloat on invisible hinges.
“The world is a house,” he says,
over lunch as if to give you a clue-
And before the words dissolve
above his plate of eggs and rice
you suddenly see how we are in it-
How everywhere the air
is holding hands with the air-
How everyone is connected
to everyone else by breathing.

The air as a door, breathing as a way we are connected.

nov 28/RUN

3.1 miles
locks and dam no. 1
23 degrees / snow flurries

A 5k run with Scott in the snow! Flurries collecting on the edge of path and in the cracks of the asphalt. Flurries in the air making my already pixelated view — due to dead cone cells — even more pixelated. Strange, dreamy, disconnected. It was cold, but not too cold. I was overdressed: double gloves, double tights, a buff, a hood, a cap. Before the end of the first mile I was losing layers: 1 pair of gloves, then a hood.

We talked about last year’s marathon, and doing it again next year, and how it wasn’t as cold as we thought it would be. I mentioned that one of my favorite views is blocked because of too many branches. Scott liked how I described it, thick with thin branches.

10 Things

  1. brown leaves on the edge of the path, mixing with the snow
  2. a white-gray sky
  3. the flurries with big and clumpy, one flew in Scott’s throat and he freaked out a little
  4. the ravine below the double bridge was open and brown and bare
  5. a steady stream of cars, distanced from each other, flowing south on the river road
  6. all the benches were empty
  7. as we ran on edmund, a car behind us gently revved to alert us to their presence
  8. bright green leaves on a tree near the savanna
  9. a biker biking by in bright yellow shoes
  10. after the run, FWA driving us, we counted 6 wild turkeys crossing the road

That was hard to come up with 10 things today!

1

In January of 2024, I devoted a month to windows. This morning, on poets.org, I found this beautiful window poem, Wooden Window Frames / Luci Tapahonso. Here are the opening lines:

The morning sun streams through the little kitchen’s  
wooden panes; its luminescence tempts me to forego coffee.  
But I don’t. The dark coffee scent melds with the birds’ 
chirping along the hidden acacia. Then, a small bird 
alights on the cross of the wooden clothesline.  
Its tiny head turns from side to side, then as if sensing me,  
it gazes at me through a window square.  
We ponder each other, then remember our manners,  
and it flies off into the clean, cold air. 

2

My Faith Unfolds Itself/ Alafia Nicole Sessions

after Faith Ringgold’s exhibit, “Black is beautiful,” at the Picasso Museum, Paris, 2023

like a ribbonless plait:            
the rain outside descends in strands:
percussive opera for the sheltered:            

petrichor of hominy and green:
grief everywhere, all at once : and then
            the sun : reminds me I’m not new:

they are my dowry : the gone ones
            and their light : refracted through
the body’s fluids : o rivers : how to

            marry threads of water with faith:
predates language : but the word was
            the beginning : have we come this far by fate:

roots fracture, forget, then return : curse
            the pattern of rupture then mend : not unlike
the making of a quilt, or muscle : broth born

            of fire and water : fists full of ephemerals:
blood-honey : water always finds her way:
            I plump and soften : like soaked grain.

nov 23/RUN

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
36 degrees

Another wonderful almost winter morning! Sunny, hardly any wind, clear paths. In January, a day like this would feel tropical and offer hope for a coming spring. Ran with Scott to the trestle and back. We talked about the Love Supreme arrangement he’s doing for the jazz combo he’s in and how he’s learning a lot about the form of its 4 movements. I talked about my “And” poem and wondered if there was a 3 syllable word that might convey sudden understanding. Scott answered, Eureka! Nice, but not quite the right feel for my poem. I could use clarity, but I don’t want to — clarity is more the mood of the moment that the reader feels without it being spelled out for them, I think.

A mile later, Scott described how you code and in css (where and means both this and that must exist to make a statement true) and how you code or (where or means either this or that can exist to make a statement true). I was fascinated by how and was restrictive and narrowing in the code while or was expansive. In my poem, I’m understanding and as generous and open and allowing for more possibilities not less. I told Scott that I might need to write an or poem now. And is accumulation, more layers while or is a stripping down.

And = all these things can be true, and more
Or = at any give time, any one of these things could be true

Am I getting too far into theory here, trying to be too clever?

Speaking of or in poetry, here’s a great or poem I just found:

Or / Thomas Sayer Ellis

Or Oreo, or
worse. Or ordinary.
Or your choice
of category

        or   
        Color

or any color
other than Colored
or Colored Only.
Or “Of Color”

        or   
        Other

or theory or discourse
or oral territory.
Oregon or Georgia
or Florida Zora

        or
        Opportunity

or born poor
or Corporate. Or Moor.
Or a Noir Orpheus
or Senghor

        or   
        Diaspora

or a horrendous
and tore-up journey.
Or performance. Or allegory’s armor
of ignorant comfort

        or
        Worship

or reform or a sore chorus.
Or Electoral Corruption
or important ports
of Yoruba or worry

        or
        Neighbor

or fear of . . .
of terror or border.
Or all organized
minorities.

And here’s what Robyn Creswell writes about the poem:

There is no doubt that Thomas Sayers Ellis’s “Or,” is a poem, but it is one of the few that feels to me like a rap—an especially good one. This is because of the way it establishes a pattern and then continually breaks away from it. The poem is based on the repetition of or, but as we read through it, what seemed like a formal constraint becomes a principle of transformation, a hinge that keeps flexing. The poem begins, as I read it, by riffing on the either/or logic of identity questionnaires (“You could get with this, or you could get with that,” as Black Sheep once put it, in a different context). But it quickly ramifies into geography, history, poetics.

Thomas Sayer Ellis’ “Or,”/ Robin Creswell

10 Things

  1. Hi Dave! How ya doing? / Well, I’m out here . . . is Dave sick too? (I’m congested but tested negative for covid twice)
  2. a runner in shorts with bare legs
  3. for a few blocks, at the start of the run, the only wind was the wind we made with our moving bodies
  4. June’s white bike hanging from the trestle
  5. bare branches mixed with bright green leaves
  6. a table with an orange water jug set up on top of it — is this for a group run (I didn’t see any group), or for anyone running by?
  7. the long, jagged crack on the new asphalt just past the trestle seems to be growing longer
  8. a trace of smoke smelled on the way to the gorge — from a fire pit or a chimney?
  9. our faint shadows briefly ahead of us
  10. stopping at the bench right above the steep slope — like I did the other day, Scott wondered how long before it fell into the gorge

nov 22/RUN

5.5 miles
franklin hill turn around
34 degrees

Perfect running weather. Cold, but not too cold, calm, overcast. Clear paths, a dreamy, detached feeling. As I ran, I thought of a goal for this winter: continue working on running with a slower heart rate. I started this during the summer/fall with marathon training, and I think it helped me avoid injuries. This winter I’m thinking I should target 155-160. I wonder what fun experiments I can do while trying to keep my heart rate low?

10 Things

  1. as I ran, I gave attention to my arms — when my form was good, I felt like my arms were blades scissoring the air
  2. the river was half bronze, half pewter
  3. 2 walkers who were not together were both 
    wearing bright RED jackets
  4. 3 stones were stacked on the boulder — the one on top was barely balanced
  5. the yellow leaves were thick on the part of the path that descends into the tunnel of trees
  6. a roller skier bombing down the hill
  7. a noisy squirrel rooting through the dry brush
  8. the slabs of stone stacked under the franklin bridge always look like a person to me — they did again today, looking like a sitting person as I passed them on my way down, just stones on my way back up — I imagined someone playing a trick on me, first sitting there, but then after I passed, putting the stones down
  9. some regulars I haven’t named yet, but that I’ve encountered for years: 3 older white men, walking, stretched across the whole walking path — is it the same guys every time, or different ones, all of them man spreading? That’s what I could call them: the man spreaders
  10. rotting sewer smell in the tunnel of trees, close to where the city is doing some work

More work this morning (and afternoon), on my “And” poem. So far, I’ve written about the formation of the gorge (wanting to be somewhere else) and the designing of the Mississippi River Gorge park (to protect from overdevelopment and sell the gorge as a symbol of the water city). Now I’m getting into my love of the view, which is about what I see — softened, elemental forms, like tree line or water or white sand beach — but also what I feel — open, a veil lifted, a little clarity, freer and more able to breathe and move, to the other side (which stands in for many things, including St. Paul where my mom lived until she was 18, the place where people who died dwell, the normal-sighted and real world that I feel distanced from. I think the view is also about how standing above the gorge enables me to witness how it holds all of these things together, that it doesn’t divide but connects. There is not a gap between girl and world, but a space that can hold them together, along with water and stone, mothers and daughters, hear and there, now and then. These are all references to past sections of the poem.

nov 21/RUN

4.15 miles
minnehaha falls and back
37 degrees
wind: 30 mph gusts

Windy and colder. I wore my full winter uniform: black running tights, long-sleeved green shirt, purple jacket, black fleece-lined cap, black gloves, buff. I overdressed — or did I? I can’t decide. It snowed yesterday, but by the time I went out for my run (noon), it had all melted. All that was left were a few puddles.

10 Things

  1. at first I thought the river was blue, but then I decided it was pewter
  2. gushing falls
  3. (almost?) empty park
  4. dark rocks sticking out of the creek — why don’t I remember seeing them before?
  5. the hollow sounding recording of bells from the light rail train across the road
  6. all of the walkers were bundled up like it was winter, which it almost is — winter coats, hats, scarves
  7. a red car in the parking lot, loud talking — a phone call? — coming out of the rolled up windows
  8. a faint smell of smoke from a fire in the gorge
  9. the sound of kids playing on the school playground — a soft din of laughing, talking, shrieking
  10. the stretch of brown wooden fence between folwell and 38th is in rough shape. Today I noticed one section with a broken slat and leaning out into the open air

nov 16/RUN

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
52 degrees
wind gusts: 36 mph

Ran with Scott in the afternoon. Windy but warm. Wore shorts and a sweatshirt that I took off a mile in. Sunny. We talked about progressive things: insurance (Scott), glasses and degenerative diseases like progressive cone dystrophy (me).

10 Things

  1. still a few YELLOW leaves clinging to the trees
  2. a beautiful almost purple blue river
  3. soft brown trunks
  4. a whining leaf blower, disrupting everyone — runners, walkers, roller skiers, squirrels
  5. a twin mattress with a ripped cover next to a trash can
  6. another runner in dark tights (purple?) with a green shirt
  7. in the tunnel of trees the path was covered with leaves
  8. adjusting my cap, worried the wind would knock it off
  9. a navy blue glove propped on a branch
  10. the water-logged black stocking cap still on the post above the steps

I’m working on a section of my Haunts poem that plays with the idea of progress and challenges the belief that progress is always better and that our lives move in strictly linear ways. I’ve written about progress before, on 7 feb 2022.

nov 13/RUN

5.85 miles
ford loop
42 degrees / humidity: 78%

November! A day for singing a song of gray. A pale, sunless sky, some wind, lots of bare branches. The tree outside my window and a few others by the gorge were YELLOW! Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker — hey Dave! Almost tripped on a few rocks on the dirt path next to the trail on the east side. Admired the waves from the bridges: from ford, little scales and from lake, a slight current down the center — from a sandbar? Heard a chickadee — chick a dee dee dee dee — and the constant grumbling of the city beneath everything.

Thought about different time scales and how time works for me while I’m running — encountering memories of past Saras, echoing their movements. Imagining the gorge before Cleveland created the Grand Rounds, before Longfellow was a neighborhood, before the gorge was a gorge. Having no idea how much time had passed — never hearing the bells of St. Thomas or looking at my watch. Having no memory of small stretches of the trail — being lost in a thought or the motion or my effort.

10 Things

  1. the fast slapping of a runner’s feet passing me from behind
  2. the clear open view from a bluff on the east side of the river, looking over to the west side
  3. 3 stacked stones on the boulder
  4. a black stocking cap placed on the top of a pole beside the trail
  5. the frantic bark of a dog, bothered by a nearby leaf blower
  6. the barricades blocking the sidewalk in front of Governor Walz’ house
  7. the ravine near Shadow Falls, mostly yellow from leaves on trees and the ground
  8. voices from below, near Longfellow flats beach
  9. a sour sewer smell near the Monument
  10. a man call out a command — drop it! — to his dog near the south entrance of the winchell trail

While looking for something else, I came across this beautiful poem by Minnesota’s first indigenous poet laureate, Dr. Gwen Westerman:

Breathe Deep and Sing/ Gwen Westerman

We sing for the mussels,

we, the otters and beavers, the frogs and dragonflies,

the waterbirds and songbirds, the coyotes too.

We breathe deep, and sing for the mussels

who are the lungs of the Mississippi River.

Our river—polluted by

sewage and wastewater,

dredged and dammed,

pockmarked by dead zones

of chemicals and dyes,

banked by the edge

of destruction.

Our river—

A global super-flyway,

it flows through the heart of us,

flowed through the heart of us

for centuries, beyond centuries,

beyond memory.

Through wetlands and backwaters,

communities and economies,

plagued by invasive species,

invasive humans—

environmental degradation

that flowed through the heart of us.

Our river—

It calls to us, it beckons us,

our dreams flow along with it.

So, we sing for the mussels,

we, the otters and beavers, the frogs and dragonflies,

the waterbirds and songbirds, the coyotes too.

We breathe deep and sing for the mussels

who are the silent sentinels of our river.

They hold the stories and the pain of

our river—40, 70, 200 years ago.

Like the trees above them

along the banks of

our river, the rings of the mussels’ shells

are a living record of our environment

and of our river.

They mark the resilience,

the struggles, the restoration

of floodplains and river bottoms,

the restoration of health and hearts.

How do we heal our river

without healing ourselves?

Our river—

It calls to us, it beckons us,

our dreams flow along with it.

Its water shapes us, embraces us,

and is our first medicine.

So, we sing for the mussels,

we, the otters and beavers, the frogs and dragonflies,

the waterbirds and songbirds, the coyotes too.

Breathe deep and sing with us for the mussels.

nov 11/RUN

5.45 miles
franklin hill turn around
38 degrees
wind: 13 mph / gusts: 27 mph

Sunny, windy, cooler. Wore one of my mild winter combinations: running tights, shorts, long-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, vest, gloves, headband that covers my ears. I overdressed. Had to take off the sweatshirt near the top of Franklin. A good run. I’m running 30 seconds faster per mile and feeling stronger in the cooler weather than I did when it was warmer.

Yesterday, I woke up feeling not quite right. I slept a lot during the day. Almost a sore throat. Took a covid test: negative. Still feel a little off today. Is it a cold? Should I cancel my annual check-up that’s scheduled for tomorrow?

I deactivated my twitter account and haven’t checked the news since the election. Mostly I’m not thinking about what is coming, and instead focusing on writing, trying to help my kids with their struggles, and living (temporarily?) in the world I’ve built through my practice.

10 Things

  1. the surface of the river was burning white through the bare trees
  2. forest branches creaking and moaning in the wind
  3. one or two trees in the floodplain forest still green
  4. bright pink bubble-letter graffiti under the 1-94 bridge
  5. 4 stones stacked on the ancient boulder
  6. Daddy Long Legs walking with someone today — I think every other time I’ve seen him, he’s been alone
  7. a pale blue sky with one or two puffs of cloud
  8. a biker slowing climbing the franklin hill on the road, a car following behind impatiently then hastily passing him
  9. an empty bench facing an open view — so much air and sun and softness
  10. walking up the hill close to the trees on the slope, I noticed a blanket spread out, hidden in the grass — was someone sleeping in it?

For the first half of the run, I listened to the gorge and my feet and the wind. For the second half, I put in my “It’s Windy” playlist.

nov 9/RUN

5.25 miles
bottom of franklin hill and back
47 degrees

A great November morning. Most of the trees bare, almost everything light brown and steel blue. A few yellow leaves still on the trees. I felt relaxed and was able to run without stopping — until I needed the port-a-potty. Found a freshly cleaned one at the bottom of the hill, then ran back up it all the way without stopping. For the last 2 miles I felt strong and resilient and ready to resist.

10 Things

  1. roller skiers — at least 3 of them, not together. All of them looked graceful and strong and ready for it to snow
  2. the awkward slapping of oars on the water from a rowing shell far below
  3. the bells of St. Thomas ringing briefly
  4. more awkward slaps from oars, this time from a shell with 3 people. I heard them when I was at the bottom of the hill and watched as they angled across the river. One of them had on a bright yellow — or was it orange? — shirt
  5. a man sitting on a bench, his back to the gorge, reading a book
  6. faint voices getting louder — was it runners or bikers? both
  7. the floodplain forest is open — no more leaves — I glanced down the steep slope to the forest floor
  8. a runner on the other side of the road in black shorts and white tights
  9. 4 stones stacked on the ancient boulder
  10. a walker bundled up in a coat with a scarf

I had a thought about my Haunts project near the start of my run. I’m writing a lot about looping and orbiting, but I haven’t written about pacing back and forth — all of my out and back or turn around runs, when I cover the same ground twice, and stay on one side of the river. I’m thinking about the difference between restless pacing and cycles/loops/orbits.

I didn’t see any eagles or hear any geese. No regulars or fat tires or music blasting from car or bike speakers. No one singing or doing something ridiculous. Only one honking car horn. No chainsaws or sirens or leaf blowers.

Today I checked out Carl Phillips’ poetry collection, which won the Pulitzer Prize, Then the War. Here’s an early favorite of mine:

The Enchanted Bluff/ Carl Phillips

You can see here, though the marks
are faint, how the river must once have coincided
with love’s most eastern boundary. But it’s years now
since the river shifted, as if done with the same
view both over and over
and never twice, which
is to say done at last with conundrum, when it’s
just a river—here’s a river . . . Why not say so,
why this need to name things based on what
they remind us of—cattail and broom, skunk
cabbage—or on what

we wished for: heal-all;
forget-me-not. Despite her dyed-too-black hair
wildly haloing her soulders, not a witch, caftanned
in turquoise, gold, turning men into better men,
into men with feelings—instead, just my mother,
already gone crazy a bit, watching the yard fill
with the feral cats
that she fed each night.
Who says you can’t die from regret being all
you can think about? What’s it matter, now, if she
learned the hard way the difference finally between
freedom and merely
setting a life free? As much
as I can, anyway, I try to keep regret far from me,

though like any song built to last, there’s a
rhythm to it that, once recognized, can be hard
to shake: one of by fear, with its double flower—
panic, ambition; two if by what’s the worst thing
you’ve ever done?

I love these lines:

But it’s years now
since the river shifted, as if done with the same
view both over and over
and never twice, which
is to say done at last with conundrum, when it’s
just a river—here’s a river . . .

I’d like to use, as if done with the same/view both over and over/and never twice.

I want to fit it into my 3/2 form and use it my Haunts section about looping and doubling back. Maybe something like this:

Occasionally
the girl does not run
on the rim, changes
her route, as if done
with the same view, both
over and over and
never twice.