Sometimes sunny, mostly overcast, cool. Back to winter tights under my shorts and 2 long-sleeved shirts. I think it’s supposed to warm up this week. I mean, I hope it’s supposed to warm up this week. Encountered the back of the Get in Gear 1/2 Marathon Race on the east side of the river. Heard some cheers farther south on the river.
10 Things I Noticed
right before starting my run, overheard some people standing outside a house for sale — had they just gone for a showing? did they like the house? will they be my new neighbors?
the loud knocking of a woodpecker somewhere in the gorge
a traffic back-up on lake street, the bridge down to one lane because of the race
lots of flashing lights from safety vehicles all around the course
the sharp sound of a bat hitting a ball over at the St. Thomas field. I thought I heard the ball land over the fence, near the road
encountering a woman, a dog, and a kid on the sidewalk. As I passed the woman said, you’re going the wrong way — meant as a joke, I think, because I was going down the hill, while the racers were running up it
the strong smell of pot as I crossed the lake street bridge
a runner with a flag — a pacer? — walking up the summit hill calling out hello to me
a full sized mattress on the sidewalk propped up against the railing on the lake street bridge. Why is it here? What was it used for?
the wind in my face for part of the run — was it ever at my back?
Love this poem I discovered today thanks to Ada Limón and her April selections for poem of the day at poets.org:
to watch the bees take most of metaphor with them.
Swarms—
in all their airborne
pointillism—
shifted on the breeze
for the last time. Of course,
the absence of bees left behind significant holes in ecology. Less
obvious
were the indelible holes
in poems, which would come later:
Our vast psychic habitat shrunk. Nothing was
like nectar for the gods
Nobody was warned by a deep black dahlia, and nobody
grew like a weed.
Nobody felt spry as a daisy, or blue and princely as a hyacinth; was lucid as a moon flower. Nobody came home
and yelled honey! up the stairs,
And nothing in particular by any other name would smell as sweet as—
Consider: the verbal dearth that is always a main ripple of extinction.
The lexicon of wilds goes on nixing its descriptions. Slimming its index of references for what is
super as a rhubarb, and juicy as a peach, or sunken as a comb and ancient as an alder tree, or conifer, or beech, what is royal as jelly, dark as a wintering
hive, toxic as the jessamine vine who weeps the way a willow does, silently as wax burned in the land of milk and
*extra = instead of ending the run at the 38th street steps, I kept going past the oak savanna and the overlook, down through the tunnel of trees, over the double bridge, before crossing over to edmund at 32nd and running back home
Felt warmer than 42 degrees with the sun and too many layers — black running tights, black shorts, long-sleeved bright yellow shirt, bright orange pull-over. The thing I noticed most today were the shadows. Heavy shadows everywhere. The shadows of trees, some stretching across the path, others leaning down, just above me. The shadow of a flying bird, a waiting lamppost.
10 Other Things I Remember from my Run
the loud knocking of a woodpecker
someone complaining to someone else on the phone. I first heard them up ahead of me near the old stone steps, then as I passed them on the trail, then about 10 minutes later from across the river road as I ran on the grass near edmund
the river, blue with less foam, not quite as high. I was planning to admire its sparkle near the south entrance to the winchell trail but I was distracted by 2 walkers just ahead of me on the trail
lower on the winchell trail the gorge below me was all river, no shore in sight
a trickle of water at the 44th st sewer, gushing at 42nd
kids playing at the school playground, yelling, laughing. one adult chanting something
the leaning trees I noticed a few weeks ago are still leaning, almost blocking the trail. A few times, I had to duck to avoid small branches
music playing (not loud enough to describe it as blasting) out of a car’s radio — some sort of rock music that I didn’t recognize
one section of the split rail fence — where? I can’t remember — is broken and needs to be repaired
most walkers I encountered were overdressed in winter coats, hats, gloves
Having finished my series of colorblind plates and feeling unmotivated to read the final sections of Ammons’ garbage, I’m project-less. Not a problem, except the lack of focus makes my mind wander everywhere. Here are just some of the things I thought about before my run this morning:
a new-ish bio
Once or twice a year, I take some time to submit poems to different literary journals. Not sure about the exact math, but I’d say I have about a 5% acceptance rate, which I don’t think is that unusual. I got used to rejection as an academic. Still stings though. Maybe that’s why I don’t submit that often. I think I also haven’t submitted a lot because I don’t care that much about being published, especially as a way to achieve fancy poetry status. But, I’d like to share my poems with a wider audience and if I only post them on my blog they don’t get read by a lot of people and I can no longer submit them to journals (most of the journals I’m encountering consider posting a poem on your personal blog as it being published already). I’d also like to apply for a grant and do an exhibit/installation of my vision test poems and I think having some of them published might help me to get that grant. So, with all that in mind, I’m currently sending poems out to different journals. As part of the submission, you write a cover letter and include a 50-150 word bio. A few days ago, I started playing around with my bio — I included a few in a post log entry on here. This morning I was still thinking about the bio. I was hoping my run would help me find another sentence for this unfinished bio:
Sara Lynne Puotinen lives in south Minneapolis near the Mississippi River Gorge where she enjoys conducting experiments in writing while moving, moving while writing, and doing both while losing her central vision. Sometimes she composes chants while running up hills, or uses her breathing patterns as she swims across a local lake to shape her lines.
The run didn’t help. In fact, I forgot to even think about my bio. Oh well.
april 21, 2022
As part of my daily, “on this day” review, I was reading through past log entries early this morning. Last year’s was especially good (I almost wrote fire, but thought better of it — okay, I did actually write it, but then deleted it). So many things to put in my ongoing projects list!
First, this:
While I ran, I wanted to try and think about fungi as hidden, always in motion/doing (a verb, not a noun), and below. Had flashes of thought about what’s beneath us, and how I’m often looking down through my peripheral, even as I look ahead with my central vision.
an experiment to try: While moving outside, give special attention to what’s beneath you, what you see, feel, hear at your feet. Make a list in your log entry.
variation: while trying don’t give attention to anything in particular. Just move. Then, in your log entry, try to remember 10 things you noticed below you.
Second:
I heard the creaking, squeaking branches and thought about old, rusty, long hidden/forgotten doors being opening — a trap door in the forest floor. I didn’t imagine past the open door or the idea that it led to the river basement (using basement here like ED in “I started Early — Took my Dog”). Still, I enjoyed thinking that I could access this door and something in my moving outside was opening a long shut door.
a question to consider: what doors await me in the gorge? where do they lead? how can I open them?
This morning, I was refreshing my memory of a Carl Sandburg poem I memorized a few years ago called “Doors.” If a door is open and you want it open, why shut it? If a door is shut and you want it shut, why open it?
An idea I have right now (25 april 2022, that is) for a poem involves playing off of these lines from Mary Oliver:
Listen, I don’t think we’re going to rise in gauze and halos. Maybe as grass, and slowly. Maybe as the long leaved, beautiful grass
And this bit from Arthur Sze in an interview with David Naiman:
I began to think I love this idea that the mycelium is below the surface. It’s like the subconscious, then when the mushroom fruits pops up above ground, maybe that’s like this spontaneous outpouring of a poem or whatever.
Something like this?
Maybe like mushrooms, we rise or not rise, flare brief burst from below then a return to swim in the dirt…
I (sara in 2023) would like to do something with this fragment, maybe tie it together with some of my thoughts about Ammons and garbage?
grass
Mary Oliver’s mention of grass reminded me of a poem I like by Victoria Chang, which led me to a log entry from Jan 11, 2022:
Left Open / Victoria Chang
We can’t see beyond the crest of the wooden gate. We are carriers of grass yet to be grown. We aren’t made of cells, but of fields.
I like this idea of being a carrier of grass yet to be grown. My first thought was of grass on graves — Whitman’s “uncut hair of graves” or Dickinson’s “The color of the grave is green”. Then I thought of Gwendolyn Brooks’ “To the Young Who Want to Die”:
Graves grow no green that you can use. Remember, green’s your color. You are Spring.
Of course, all this grass talk also reminded me of this part of the cento I just created as one of my colorblind plate poems:
The world mostly g one, I make it what I want: I empty my mind. I stuff it with grass. I’m green, I repeat. I grow in green, burst u p in bonfires of green, whirl and hurl my green over the rocks of this imaginary life.
This cento is made out of lines from poems I’ve gathered for this log: The world mostly gone, I make it what I want (Psalm with Near Blindness/ Julia B. Levine) I empty my mind. I stuff it with grass. I’m green, I repeat. (Becoming Moss/Ella Frears) I grow in green (Paean to Place/ Lorine Niedecker) burst up in bonfires of green (The Enkindled Spring/ D. H. Lawrence whirl and hurl my green over the rocks (Oread) this imaginary life (The Green Eye/ James Merrill)
addendum, 26 april 2023: Reading back through my entries about A. R. Ammons as I prepare to post my monthly challenge for April, I encountered these lines from Ammons’ pome “Grassy Sound.” How could I have already forgotten them?!
The wind came as grassy sound and between its grassy teeth spoke words said with grass
Happy Birthday Ted Kooser!
Discovered via twitter that today would have been Ted Kooser’s 84th birthday. What a wonderful poet! I’ve gathered 6 of his poems for this log:
Hooray for sun and low wind and clear paths! Ran the entire food loop without stopping to walk. My legs were sore by the end but mostly, I felt good. Ran past all the orange “road closed” signs for the Get in Gear this weekend. Scott and I were considering signing up for it, but he’s not trained up enough yet and I’m not that big into races anymore. Too many people, packed too tightly. Plus, they’re expensive. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker at the beginning of the run and a few other walkers and runners along the route.
10 Things I Noticed
the river is still high, but not as much fast moving foam. On the lake street bridge, it was a contemplative blue with swirls of something just under the surface — or were they on the surface — reflected clouds?
sometimes it was sunny, sometimes it wasn’t. didn’t see my shadow
also, didn’t hear the bells over at St. Thomas
checked my watch: from the bottom of the hill, just off the steps of the lake street bridge, to the top, right by the entrance to the shadow falls trail, is .65 miles
one goose, flying low and honking awkwardly
encountered 3 or 4 runners on the east side of the river
a loud leaf blower below me, on the locks and dam #1 trail
water — some gushing, some trickling out of sewer pipes and limestone, some traveling through the ravine and down to the river
heard the loud knocking of a woodpecker down in the gorge
overheard: one woman walker talking to another: we were in Norway without a hotel. I was on the phone for 3 hours… [laughter]
Tried to read the last few sections of A. R. Ammons’ garbage, but can’t seem to do it. Too many words. Instead, I found myself (how? I can’t remember now) reading through some of Dan Beachy-Quick’s poems and thinking, not for the first time, that he writes a lot about eyes and blindness and (not) seeing. Is he writing from experience, or is it all a convenient metaphor? A google search of his name and “eyes” or “vision problems” or “blindness” has yielded no useful results.
But how find how as it flew onward & the mountains gave back the sound to say what I mean the call of the bird & the echoe after to say I’ve seen?
Raven hungers and calls and the mountain Hungers back and calls The whole range of peaks in the bird’s beak. Raven lonely and the mountain rings Loneliness & the echoe after we could see him no longer
The echo after we could see Light in echo the eye sees also through the ear a double infinity
As expected, much cooler today. It is supposed to rain until late afternoon, so I’m happy I managed to run between raindrops. I think it started drizzling towards the end of the run, but it was hard to tell because I was overheated and sweating. Yesterday I wore a tank top and shorts, today the same shorts but with tights, a long sleeved shirt and my winter vest. Tomorrow it might snow. April in Minnesota.
Listened to “swim meet motivation” playlist so I didn’t give much attention to the world. I took my headphones out for a few seconds and heard lots of birds. What else?
10 Things I Noticed
near St. Thomas, 2 runners in red jackets on the other side of Cretin, sprinting down the sidewalk
the river: brown, dull, flat
later, exiting the lake street bridge, I noticed an unusual number of cars turning off from the river road. An event somewhere?
I think a house I always pass by on this loop has a new fence, or has it always been there and I just noticed it today?
the sky was dark and gloomy
most of the cars had their headlights on. I could see them through the bare trees on the other side of the ravine by shadow falls
one car didn’t have their headlights on and I could barely see them
2 different lime scooters parked in awkward spots, one blocking part of the sidewalk on marshall, the other up against the railing on the lake street bridge
no eagle perched on the dead tree on the east side of the lake street bridge
mud + leafy muck + water collecting at the sidewalk curb entrances. a few times I stepped right in it
A. R. Ammons’ garbage
Section 13 took me a few read throughs to find a way in. In section 12, Ammons had railed against words, too many words! In section 13, he describes two types of men who use too many words: the blabbermouth and the loudmouth. Then he ends with this:
whirlwind, not human, I’m the whirlwind: the creaking hills, not human, my silence cracks and
creaks: the flow of clouds not mine, my motions trained clear by clouds: and the
streams’ yielding bending fathers my winding: and the semicircles’ gusts before storms make
grassclumps draw in the sand—these are the going closures that organize mind, allowing
and limiting, my mind’s ways: the rabbit’s leaps and halts, listenings, are prosody of
a poem floating around the mind’s brush: I mix my motions in with the mix of motions, all
motions cousins, conveyors, purveyors, surveyors, rising from the land, eddying coils of wash,
bristling with fine-backed black clarity as with brookripples over stone, spreading out, evaporating
or seeping in under, soaking, salt flats, the turkey buzzard whirling, the wind whirling,
the giant “stills” of the sea and I, and sand, whirling, stalling, breaking out, getting on,
coming round—cousins, not silent, either, communicative, but not with human sound,
communicative motions making sounds, much mutual glistening in a breezy grove of spring aspen speech
prosody: I know I know this word, having encountered dozens of times, but somehow I still forget what it means. I looked it up: the patterns of rhythm and sound used on poetry
This bit reminds me of Ammons’ earlier discussion in section 7 about non-human languages — whales, horses, birds. Here it’s the language of motions. I love this last line:
much mutual glistening in a breezy grove of spring aspen speech
Spring aspen speech? So good. Reading this part about all the motion, I’m thinking of one of my introductions to Ammons and the initial inspiration for studying him this month: “Corsons Inlet.” Once I finish garbage I’ll have to read that poem again.
4 miles minnehaha falls and back 38 degrees 99% clear path
Yesterday we woke up to more than 1/2 foot (7 inches?) of wet, heavy snow. I opened the curtain and our service berry bush, which looks more like a tree to me, was so weighed down with snow that it drooped over the deck and blocked the steps down to the yard. Back by the garage, the four tall, narrow trees were bent over, looking like an ice spider. Scott took a video:
the aftermath of April snow
Of course, because this is April snow, it was all melted by the time I went out for a run this morning around 10:30. Hooray! By the end of next week, it might be close to 60. I am ready for spring.
Before I went out for my run, I read this poem by A. R. Ammons:
Grassy Sound/ A. R. Ammons
It occurred to me there are no sharp corners in the wind and I was very glad to think I had so close a neighbor to my thoughts but decided to sleep before inquiring
The next morning I got up early and after yesterday had come clear again went down to the salt marshes to talk with the straight wind there I have observed I said your formlessness and am
enchanted to know how you manage loose to be so influential
The wind came as grassy sound and between its grassy teeth spoke words said with grass and read itself on tidal creeks as on the screens of oscilloscopes A heron opposing it rose wing to wind
turned and glided to another creek so I named a body of water Grassy Sound and came home dissatisfied there had been no direct reply but rubbed with my soul an apple to eat till it shone
some favorite lines: there are no sharp corners in the wind after yesterday had come clear again wind as grassy sound with grassy teeth speaking grassy words it rose wing to wind
I gave myself a task for my run on a windy (12 mph) day: observe how the wind speaks. I tried, but all I could hear was the wind rushing past my ears as I ran east toward the river. It didn’t speak as grass or swaying trees or wind chimes, just hissing whispers in my ears. By the time I reached the river I had already forgotten the task.
Running south to the falls, I listened to the birds, shuffling feet, and the fragment of a conversation that I hoped to remember, but have forgotten. On the way back, I put in a Taylor Swift playlist.
10 Things I Noticed
the cardinal’s torpedoed call (a line from Didi Jackson’s “Listen”), not coming in slow waves, not coming in waves at all, but one rapid trill — too many notes coming too fast to count
the river, a beautiful shiny bronze
right after I reached the river, encountering 2 walkers pushing strollers, taking up almost the entire path
at least 2 fat tires
almost everywhere, the path was clear and dry, except for at the double-bridge where it was almost completely covered with lumpy snow
a big pine tree down at locks and dam #1, blocking the running path. As I ducked under it, I noticed where it the trunk had split — was that the only tree that was down? Had there been more, or had they already cleared them?
at the falls, someone was driving a giant snowblower and shooting snow off to the side of the trail. I could see a blur of white, hear the whirr of the snow flying through the air
I know I stopped to look at the falls, but I can’t remember what it looked like, or how it sounded
at least one runner (male) in shorts
no mud or dirt or bare grass, everything covered (again) in snow
Back to Ammons’ poem:
oscilloscopes a device for viewing oscillations, as of electrical voltage or current, by a display on the screen of a cathode ray tube.
I’m thinking about how the narrator in Ammons’ poem is dissatisfied that the wind didn’t answer his question directly. My thought, did you really expect the wind to reveal its secrets? Such arrogance! Then I thought about a poem I read the other day by Denise Levertov:
Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry.
I who don’t know the secret wrote the line. They told me
(through a third person) they had found it but not what it was not even
what line it was. No doubt by now, more than a week later, they have forgotten the secret,
the line, the name of the poem. I love them for finding what I can’t find,
and for loving me for the line I wrote, and for forgetting it so that
a thousand times, till death finds them, they may discover it again, in other lines
in other happenings. And for wanting to know it, for
assuming there is such a secret, yes, for that most of all.
I love the contrast between the Ammons and Levertov poems, their different perspectives on indirect communication — Ammons’ disappointed arrogance, Levertov’s grateful delight. Here, I’m on team Levertov. How boring to receive a direct, final answer. Much better to perceive incomplete answers that are soon forgotten and must be discovered again and again.
I’ll forgive Ammons for his arrogance though because of his wonderful image of the wind speaking as/with/through grass. I’d like to learn to speak as grass too or learn to listen for it. And, sometime when I’m running beside a field of tall grass, I’d like to recite his beautiful lines back to it:
The wind came as grassy sound and between its grassy teeth spoke words said with grass
Ran just after noon today. Sunny and warm. My legs felt a little sore, but the rest of me was loving this spring weather. Right before I went out, I read this poem and gave myself an assignment:
Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed The speculating rooks at their nests cawed And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flowers of grass, What we below could not see, Winter pass.
Thaw as the theme for my running today. How many instances of it can I encounter?
10+ Thawed Things
water dripping down the sewer, a fast flurry of drips, sounding like glitter looks
sandy grit on the edge of trail, left behind by the melted snow
also remaining after the snow melted: mulched-up leaves, small, brittle twigs
mud!, part 1: thick and wet and milk chocolate brown, ruts from a vehicle’s tires running through it
mud!, part 2: sloppy, mixed with decomposing leaves, covering the walking path
bare, dark brown dirt at the edge of someone’s yard
water gushing down the ravine
less layers = 1 pair of running tights, 1 running shirt, 1 running vest, no gloves, no buff, no winter cap
a quick flash of an earthy smell
puddles — none of them too deep or covering the entire path
a class — elementary school kids? — near the trestle. It’s warm enough for spring field trips!
the walking path — was able to run on more of it, and less of the bike path, today
Right before I started I saw some snow flurries but by the time I was running, they had stopped. Windy, humid. A cold 32 degrees. Began the run needing to lose my anxiousness. I did. Some parts of the run were hard; I’m not sure I’m completely over my sickness. But some parts of it were great. For a few minutes I felt like I was flying and free. I did a lot of triple berry chants on the way north. Stopped at the trestle to look down at the brown flat river. Then I put in the Fame (1980 version) soundtrack and ran back south. Timed it so “I Sing the Body Electric” was on as I ran up the last hill. As I sped up, I could hear some geese honking over the gorge, almost like they were racing me. Yes!
10 Things I Noticed
mud — thick, gooey, dark brown — on the edge of the path and alongside the lingering snow
sporadic geese honks throughout the run
the path was almost completely clear, only a few puddles and strips of ice
the wind was strong and in my face as I climbed out from under the lake street bridge
under the bridge, a parked suburu was facing the wrong way
some of the walking path was clear
the river was open and brown. It looked less like water and more like a flat wall
near the end of the run, I stopped for a minute to admire the view between the trees of the lake street bridge and the cars traveling over it
faintly recall hearing some birds chirping in a distinctive way — was it cheer up cheer up?
can’t remember if I heard the sound of my feet striking and sliding on the grit, but I felt it
James Schuyler, Hymn to Life, Page 9
Begins with Have much to thank you for, ends with the evening star seems set.
This page — wow.
And someone You know well is suffering, sees it all but not the way before Him, hating his job and not knowing what to change it for. Have You any advice to give? Have you learned nothing in all these Years? “Take it as it comes.” Sit still and listen: each so alone.
How often do people, when they’re suffering and tell others about it, want advice? How often do I? Sometimes. Mostly I want acknowledgment. Someone to witness what I’m feeling and to honor that it is real, true. Rarely do I want someone to tell me it will be okay or that I’m making a bigger deal out of it (whatever it is) than I should. I try not to give advice, often falling back on the classic, that sucks. More often than I should — should I ever do this? — I try to relate to the other’s pain, share a story of what I think is a similar experience. My daughter hates when I do this, it makes her feel worse. Often I can’t help myself. Slowly, I’ve been getting better at just listening, sitting still.
“Time heals All wounds”: now what’s that supposed to mean? Wounds can Kill, like that horse chestnut tree with the rotting place will surely Die unless the tree doctor comes. Cut out the rot, fill with tree Cement, score and leave to heal.
I think about this one in terms of grief, especially my grief over my mom’s death. It’s true that it isn’t as hard, and I’m not as undone as I was right after she died. But, what does it mean to heal? And, how often do things heal on their own, without any effort or attention? Maybe time doesn’t heal but…gives you more practice living with it? I’m sure this doesn’t totally apply, but I always think about what I’ve heard long-time and/or pro runners say about running long distances: it never gets easier, you just get better at enduring it.
And there Is the fog off the cold Atlantic. No one is at his best with A sinus headache. It will pass. Stopped passages unblock
I appreciate that he put this detail in. Just before reading this page, I was having what I call, a sinus episode. Not quite a headache, but a strange ache and heaviness that descends. No sharp pain, but discomfort, a queasy uneasiness. Pressure. Sometimes feeling like a thick iron plate is pressing down on my face. I’ve been getting these ever since the pandemic started — are they anxiety? Maybe partly? They used to last all day, but now that I’ve learned to put on a breathe right strip, they usually go away pretty quickly.
why Let the lovely spring, its muck and scarlet emperors, get you Down. Unhibernate. Let the rain soak your hair, run down your Face, hang in drops from facial protuberances. Face into It, then towel dry. Then another day brings back the sun and Violets in the grass.
Unhibernate. Face into it, then towel dry. I like this idea better than time heals all wounds.
Far away In Washington, at the Reflecting Pool, the Japanese cherries Bust out into their dog mouth pink. Visitors gasp. The sun Drips, coats and smears, all that spring yellow under unending Blue.
Why does this poem keep returning to DC? I’ll have to look that up. I did (hours later). Not sure if this is the only answer, but he grew up in D.C.
I love his description of the intense, over-the-top ripeness and showiness of spring. I’m reminded of Ada Limón and her line, “the neighbor’s almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving their cotton-candied color blossoms to the slate sky of Spring rains” (almost remembered it word for word!). The difference is Schuyler’s sun and how it drips, coats and smears, all that spring yellow. This reminds me of living in Atlanta and the yellow pollen, coating every surface. Yuck! For me it just looked gross and stained everything, for others it made it very hard to breathe.
Only the oaks hold back their leaf buds, reticent. Reticence is not a bad quality, though it may lead to misunderstandings. I misunderstood silence for disapproval, see now it was Sympathy.
Are the oaks the last to bud here in Minnesota. I’ll have to watch in the next month. Is it reticence or patience, or maybe a desire to hang back and stay out of the fray of frantic growing and greening? I might be asking this of myself and not the oaks.
Reticent = reserved, holding back, restrained Patience = not hasty or impetuous, measured
I’m not sure whether or not oaks are the last to bud here in Minnesota, but when they do, they aren’t reticent, and their leaves don’t hold back. Within weeks they have consumed the trees, then my view of the gorge. Never in pleasing, controlled shapes like maples, but a hungry, sprawling green everywhere.
Thank you, May, for these warm stirrings. Life Goes on, it seems, though in all sorts of places—nursing Homes—it is drawing to a close. Abstractions and generalities: Grass and blue depths into which the evening star seems set.
Not sure what to say about this bit, but I wanted to leave it in. note, 29 march 2023: Looking back at these lines I started thinking about vision — my vision as an old person’s vision — and how details are lost, things appear mostly in the abstract and as forms — outside, blue sky and grass.
4.75 miles river road, north/south 30 degrees / snow 100% snow-covered
Even though I saw that snow showers were predicted for this morning, I wasn’t expecting it to be snowing today, or if it was, to only be the big flakes that fall but never land. Wrong. The snow started around 8 and hasn’t let up yet (at noon). The most irritating thing about the snow was that it was blowing in my face, even with the brim of my cap pulled way down. The most delightful? Maybe the sharp, quick snap of the crunching snow, or the way the not slippery but also not solid surface made me feel faster or more like I was flying then plodding, or how the rare pops of color — the yellowish-green crosswalk sign, the blue bike path sign, a runner’s pink hat, the hot pink and lime green stripe on another runner’s pants, the orange water jug on the side of the path set up by some running group — stood out against the relentless backdrop of white, or the cross-country skier! skiing on the path. A great run!
At the end of my run, right in front of my house, I heard the snow crunching and the birds chirping and I had to pull out my phone to record them. I made the mistake of holding the phone down at my side — is it a mistake? — and so the crunching sound is so loud that it’s distorted. It was loud, though. I remember passing another running and hearing her feet CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCHing!
LOUD! / 11 march 2023
Before I went out for a run, I read through the third page of Schuyler’s poem. So much of it is about color. I wanted to spend my run looking for color, and I did, at least some of the time, but I became focused on avoiding rough snow and making sure I noticed the river — open, wide, the snow looking like a white mist hovering above the water.
Colors I Remember Noticing
a pale yellow flag in the snow
a yellowish-green crosswalk sign
blue biking and walking path signs
a bright pink hat on a runner
chartreuse running tights on a runner
my purple jacket
almost everything, white
a dark gray strip of bare pavement
running tights with a stripe of lime green and hot pink
an orange water jug
Schuyler, Hymn of Life, page 3
Begins with Below Lee, ends with Or simply lying down to read. A lot of color. Decided to pick out only the color lines, except for one delightful one about birds that I couldn’t resist:
Created no illusion of lived-in-ness. But the periwinkles do, in beds That flatten and are starred blue-violet, a retiring flower loved, It would seem, of the dead, so often found where they congregate.
I’m unfamiliar with periwinkles, so I looked them up:
Tough, low-maintenance, and pest-free, Vinca minor (commonly known as periwinkle) has pretty broadleaf foliage and flowers that thrive in the sun or shade. It is also useful for providing ground cover and is known for its creeping habit. Periwinkle can come back every year as a perennial when planted in warmer climates but is an annual in cooler regions. Vinca minor vines most commonly put out a blue flower in spring, but the color can also be lavender, purple, or white.
Oh wow, I think I have these in my back yard! I love the little purple pops of color, breaking up the monotony of green. Usually I’m able to see them. And, are these flowers that I write about in an entry dated july 29, 2019 periwinkles?
Forgot to look for the river again today. Instead saw lots of green. A few slashes of light purple. What are those wildflowers? Green with purple all over the edge of the path.
Doubtful. I searched periwinkles and Mississippi River Gorge and vinca minor and Mississippi River Gorge and nothing came up.
The sky Colors itself rosily behind gray-black and the rain falls through The basketball hoop on a garage, streaking its backboard with further Trails of rust, a lovely color to set with periwinkle violet-blue.
A rosy sky behind gray-black clouds? Not pure reddish-pink or pinkish-red but the hint of it behind something darker. The rust — did I see rust anywhere on my run? I don’t think so.
in the west appear streaks of different green
So under lilacs unleaved/ Lie a clump of snowdrops
What are snowdrops, and can I find them here in Minneapolis? Yes! But not today.
The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum gardeners and I are on the lookout each March for the first snowdrop flowers, the first perennial garden plant to bloom and a marker of the beginning of the growing season.
A few of the white, bell-like flowers opened March 16 last year, announcing the end of winter.
In botanical and gardening books, snowdrops are described as hardy bulbs with nodding flowers that bloom, while lingering patches of snow are still seen.
I think I’ve seen them in my backyard in very early spring. I’ll have to look out for them at the end of this month or in April.
and one purple crocus. Purple. A polka-dotted Color little girls are fond of: “See my new dress!” and she twirls On one foot. Then, crossed, bursts into tears.
Purple. A polka-dotted Color? Is there a crocus that is purple with polka dots, or is he suggesting that like polka-dots, purple is a color that delights little girls? I don’t like his emotionally erratic little girl image.
Smiles and rain, like These passing days in which buds swell, unseen as yet, waiting For the elms to color their further out most twigs,
The early buds on the tips of tree twigs! I notice these all winter, waiting for them to turn green.
only the willow Gleams yellow.
When I lived much closer to Minnehaha Creek, I would often walk by a beautiful willow tree. Several years ago, it was cut down. It has appeared in a few of my early poem fragments. I remember how it looked yellow in the spring. What a beautiful tree! Now, when I think of willow trees, I mostly think of Carl Phillips (see the end of this log entry).
These Days need birds and so they come, a flock of ducks, and a bunch of Small fluffy unnamed balls that hide in hedges and make a racket.
These days need birds. Yes! I love that line, and the sentiment. Also, the small, fluffy unnamed balls that hide in hedges. No color mentioned; I just wanted to make note of this great bit. I can see a soft, intense, egg yellow of fluff.
It is more Mysterious than that, pierced by blue
I think the pierced by blue is a reference to the color that cuts through the gloom of a rainy, cloudy day.
I read somewhere that in addition to writing poetry, James Schuyler was an art critic. I would imagine that all the time he spent studying various paintings has influenced how he sees, understands, is able to describe color. He’s a great color poet.
Not completely sure if my body — my knees, left hip, lower back — were quite ready to run today, but the rest of me was, and I’m glad I did. The trail was almost completely clear with hardly any ice. And, there was only one short stretch of puddle-y slush so bad that I stopped to walk in the street to avoid it.
10 Things I Remember
the Minneapolis park crew had spread some dirt/sand on the trail to help make it less slippery. It was especially helpful under the lake street bridge on the marshall side
heard the drumming of a woodpecker somewhere in the gorge — it cut through the thick air. Also heard at least two geese, flying low and honking
the flurries were at an angle and I pulled the bill of my cap way down, almost covering my eyes, so that the snow wouldn’t fly directly into my eyes
the river, part 1: the river was gray and open as I crossed the franklin bridge
smelled the sewer a few times — a result of the recent (slight) thaw. Yuck!
the river road on the east side south of franklin was in terrible condition. So many potholes — dozens. I couldn’t tell if they were deep, just that there were a lot of them!
river, part 2: crossing back over the lake street bridge, the river was almost completely open, only one small chunk of ice
the river, part 3: near the small chunk of ice, I noticed that the river looked blueish green. A strange, delightful color. But what was causing it?
don’t remember hearing all the grit under my feet, but I remember feeling it. I like sliding on it. Why? Maybe because it’s more interesting than flat, hard pavement?
Favorite spot: near Meeker Island Dam, there’s a spot with an open view of the river and the other side. Only a few slender tree trunks in the way
Before heading out for my run, I had started revising my “How to Sink” poem. Thought I might get some inspiration by the gorge. Later, as I ran, I realized that I should wait to finish this poem when it’s spring, or at least warmer, when everything is dripping and oozing and flowing down to the river. I thought of this as the sharp flurried stabbed my face. Was thinking that I should do a “How to” poem related to water through the seasons.
Summer = How to Float
Spring = How to Sink
Winter = How to Settle? — something about snow that’s packed, layer, staying (not melting), compacting — How to be compact? or, How to Shrink?
Fall = I need to think about this one some more. What does water do in the fall? Maybe something related to decomposing — leaves falling, drying up, becoming brittle? water leaving — freezing — frost? fog? or, How to Rust?
Recited from memory my ED poem, “I measure every Grief I meet” before the run, then during it as I walked up the hill between the meeker dam and lake street. Recorded it into my phone. Only missed a few prepositions. Nice! My memorizing and reciting has improved over the years. This skill will come in handy when my ability to read gets worse. I’ll be able to memorize my poems for reciting to others.
I recited some of ED’s poem in my head as I ran. It follows a steady beat, so it’s easy to keep in rhythm, harder to recite without getting sucked into a sing song-y cadence.
This poem popped up on my twitter feed this morning:
Lake of the Isles/ Anni Liu
After my grandfather died I waited for him to arrive In Minneapolis. Daily I walked across the water Wearing my black armband Sewn from scraps, ears trained for his voice. Migration teaches death, deprives us Of the language of the body, Prepares us for other kinds of crossings, The endless innovations of grief. Forty-nine days, forty-nine nights— I carried his name and a stick Of incense to the island in the lake And with fellow mourners watched As it burned a hole in the ice. He did not give a sign, but I imagined him Traveling against the grain Of the earth, declining time. Spirit like wind, roughening Whatever of ourselves we leave bare. When he was alive, he and I Rarely spoke. But his was a great And courageous tenderness. Now we are beyond the barriers Of embodied speech, of nationhood. Someday, I will join him there in the country Of our collective future, knowing That loneliness is just an ongoing Relationship with time. It is such a strange thing, to be Continuous. In the weeks without snow, What do the small creatures drink?
About This Poem
My grandfather died during the first winter of the pandemic. His was the first death of someone I loved. That winter, people everywhere experienced the impossibility of being with dying loved ones. No one knew how to mourn in absentia. Having been separated from him and the rest of my family for twenty-two years due to my immigration status, I had had practice. I turned to poetry. Poems can enact impossible journeys. So, even though I wasn’t able to see him or be with my family, I could mourn. Here, in this room I made for us to be together.
A few weeks ago, my daughter walked on the ice at Lake of the Isles with her friend. They didn’t visit the island, but she talked about going back, and she wondered what happened there. I told her about this poem this morning as she made her coffee. Together we wondered if this actually happened, that during the pandemic people visited the island to mourn. Now I wonder, what does it mean to “actually” happen? If it was only conjured for this poem, does that mean it didn’t happen? [No.]
Love these lines:
That loneliness is just an ongoing Relationship with time.
It is such a strange thing, to be Continuous.
In the weeks without snow, What do the small creatures drink?
Now I’m wondering, how would Emily Dickinson measure Liu’s grief?
Ran on the track with Scott this morning, not together but at the same time. I thought about swimming, but knew it would be crowded, so I ran. Listened to a playlist titled, Sara 2020. Started with Tower of Power’s “What is Hip” and ended with Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.” Focused on my cadence, arm swing, and not running into people as I passed them, including 2 runners who were running in the far lane. There were soccer games going on below me in the big gym, but I didn’t notice them at all. Too lost in my run.
The thing I noticed the most were the people:
a man with white hair, wearing shorts and a tank top, running
a woman in turquoise shorts and a tank top, running in the far lane, making it difficult to pass
another runner in dark sweatpants and a light shirt running in the far lane
2 people walking, one of them carrying dumbells
another pair of women, the one in the middle lane wearing a bright blue shirt
a woman in mid-calf light blue patterned running tights and a white tank top running in the middle lane
someone in tan shorts walking faster than the other walkers
a woman stretching her calf muscles on the steps in the far corner
a guy in gray, walking
someone in red (I think?) sitting on the bench near the punching bag and the exit
I was listening to music, so I couldn’t hear what anyone was saying, but Scott told me that he overheard 3 interesting things from the pair of women walkers (#5 above). He called them chatty Cathys, he guessed they were in college, and he heard them say this: First, just as he passed them, he overheard one of them call out in disgust, Yuck! Next time, They’ll see it on your transcripts. Finally, You should really stop binging. Binging a show, food, alcohol? What will they see on your transcripts, and is this a good thing, or a bad thing? I love overheard conversations and imagining what they’re about.
Here are two poems I discovered today that move in opposite directions:
Suddenly this defeat. This rain. The blues gone gray And the browns gone gray And yellow A terrible amber. In the cold streets Your warm body. In whatever room Your warm body. Among all the people Your absence The people who are always Not you.
I have been easy with trees Too long. Too familiar with mountains. Joy has been a habit. Now Suddenly This rain.
Today my heart is so goddamned fat with grief that I’ve begun hauling it in a wheelbarrow. No. It’s an anvil dragging from my neck as I swim through choppy waters swollen with the putrid corpses of hippos, which means lurking, somewhere below, is the hungry snout of a croc waiting to spin me into an oblivion worse than this run-on simile, which means only to say: I’m sad. And everyone knows what that means.
And in my sadness I’ll walk to a café, and not see light in the trees, nor finger the bills in my pocket as I pass the boarded houses on the block. No, I will be slogging through the obscure country of my sadness in all its monotone flourish, and so imagine my surprise when my self-absorption gets usurped by the sound of opera streaming from an open window, and the sun peeks ever-so-slightly from behind his shawl, and this singing is getting closer, so that I can hear the delicately rolled r’s like a hummingbird fluttering the tongue which means a language more beautiful than my own, and I don’t recognize the song though I’m jogging toward it and can hear the woman’s breathing through the record’s imperfections and above me two bluebirds dive and dart and a rogue mulberry branch leaning over an abandoned lot drags itself across my face, staining it purple and looking, now, like a mad warrior of glee and relief I run down the street, and I forgot to mention the fifty or so kids running behind me, some in diapers, some barefoot, all of them winged and waving their pacifiers and training wheels and nearly trampling me when in a doorway I see a woman in slippers and a floral housedress blowing in the warm breeze who is maybe seventy painting the doorway and friends, it is not too much to say it was heaven sailing from her mouth and all the fish in the sea and giraffe saunter and sugar in my tea and the forgotten angles of love and every name of the unborn and dead from this abuelita only glancing at me before turning back to her earnest work of brushstroke and lullaby and because we all know the tongue’s clumsy thudding makes of miracles anecdotes let me stop here and tell you I said thank you.
This poem! The beauty that interrupts us and forces us out of ourselves and into the world! Ross Gay is wonderful.
My Emily Dickinson, part two
a new grammar grounded in humility and hesitation
Emily Dickinson took the scraps from the separate “higher” female education many bright women of her time were increasingly resenting, combined them with voracious and “unladylike” outside reading, and used the combination. She built a new poetic form from her fractured sense of being eternally on inteIlectual borders, where confident masculine voices buzzed an alluring and inaccessible discourse, backward through history into aboriginal anagogy. Pulling pieces of geometry, geology, alchemy, philosophy, politics, biography, biology, mythology, and philology from alien territory, a “sheltered” woman audaciously invented a new grammar grounded in humility and hesitation. HESITATE from the Latin, meaning to stick. Stammer. To hold back in doubt, have difficulty speaking. “He may pause but he must not hesitate”-Ruskin. Hesitation circled back and surrounded everyone in that confident age of aggressive industrial expansion and brutal Empire building. Hesitation and Separation. The Civil War had split American in two. He might pause, She hesitated. Sexual, racial, and geographical separation are at the heart of Definition.
Here’s something I wrote about this passage on March 17, 2021:
I really like this idea of hesitation and humility and aboriginal anagogy as a sharp contrast to progress, aggression, confidence/hubris, and time as always moving forwards (teleology). I tried to find a source that could explain exactly what Howe means by aboriginal anagogy but I couldn’t. I discovered that anagogy means mystical or a deeper religious sense and so, when I connect it to aboriginal, I’m thinking that she means that ED imbues pre-Industrial times (pre Progress!, where progress means trains and machines and cities and Empires and factories and plantations and the enslavement of groups of people and the increased mechanization of time and bodies and meaning and, importantly, grammar) with the sacred. Is that right? Is it clear what I’m saying?
A few paragraphs later, Howe writes this about ED’s grammar of “hesitation and humility”:
Naked sensibilities at the extremest periphery. Narrative expanding contracting dissolving. Nearer to know less before afterward schism in sum. No hierarchy, no notion of polarity. Perception of an object means loosing and losing it. …Trust absence, allegory, mystery–the setting not the rising sun is Beauty. No outside editor/”robber.” Conventional punctuation was abolished not to add “soigne stitchery” but to subtract arbitrary authority. Dashes drew liberty of interruption inside the structure of each poem. Hush of hesitation for breath and for breathing….only Mutability certain.
Some of this is starting to make sense. The periphery, the dashes as hesitation, mystery. I was curious about her take on sunsets over sunrises so I googled it and found this ED poem and helpful account from the Prowling Bee (love her!). She includes a list of ED’s sunset poems.
Howe ends Part One with one more description of ED’s hesitation and humility:
Forcing, abbreviating, pushing, padding, subtraction, riddling, interrogating, re-writing, she pulled text from text (29).