Tag: bench

june 10/RUNSWIM

4.5 miles
veterans home
59 degrees
poor air quality

The smoke from Canadian wild fires didn’t bother me much, although the inside of my nose was coated with something which made breathing a little more difficult. Other than that, it was a nice morning for a run. More shade than sun, low wind. Another 9/1 success. I’m continuing to build up the mental strength — a belief that I can keep going. Chanting in triple berries helped: strawberry raspberry blueberry.

Yesterday I mentioned possibly focusing on benches as a monthly theme — or a 1 or 2 week theme? As I ran south, I made note of a few of the benches.

9 Benches

near the worn wooden steps leading to the winchell trail — wooden slats — empty
at the top of a mulched trail descending into the oak savanna — a worn boulder that looks and acts as a bench — someone was standing there today, writing something on a piece of paper
above the 38th street steps — wooden slats — empty
beside a boulder in a part of the walking path that splits from the bike path — wooden slats — empty
in a patch of grass above the “edge of the world” — wooden slats — empty
on the edge of the 44th street parking lot — wooden slats — occupied by a bike/biker
near John Stevens house and a cluster of picnic tables — wooden slats — empty
at the bus stop across from the veterans home — green metal back/wooden slat seat — empty
above the locks and dam no. 1 — green metal back/wooden slat seat — empty

Other things noticed: 4 or 5 turkeys in the grassy boulevard, a group of 8-10 roller skiers, the roar of the falls through the trees, a human with 2 dogs trotting to the creek bank, the light rail horn blasting a warning, the sweet/sour smell of earth on the hill descending below the ford bridge, headlights from a bobcat below me in the woods — I think they’re building a new walking path that goes deeper into the gorge!

For the first 3 miles, I listened to voices and wheels and the echo of a dog’s bark. For the last 1.5 miles, my color playlist.

still life

In the middle of the night, during one of several bouts of restlessness, I started reading a book I got from the library: Still Life/ Jay Hopler. Why did I request this book? It must have been because of the title and my interest in the word, still, and still life paintings. Reading more about it, I discovered this:

When Jay Hopler was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer and told he only had two years left to live, he chose to spend his time writing this book: a rare gift to our world in all its ways. The book seems to be both a representation of all the moving parts of the dying, as well as an antithesis to how we usually converse about death, namely a dying person.
Still Life review

still life w/ wet gems/ Jay Hopler

lightnings bang their jaggeds on the cloud-glower
the cloud-glower is a broken necklace spilling its wet gems
its wet gems w/ facets cut uncountable
uncountable the reflections of the world in those gems
uncountable the version of the world into its dry self crashing
the shards of those worlds like shrapnel blasting skyward
slicing skyward or sidewise through the dune grass
the dune grass flattened by that splatter even as i write
the words

To My Wife on Our Anniversary/ Jay Hopler

In Castiglione del Lago, the pines are iron-spined. When the wind
blows, they stand still & the earth sways. If only God had forged me thus!
Forced into a stooped form & told to straighten up, that’s as far as His
blessings ever extended in my direction. You know what keeps me from
falling apart? Luck & duct tape. Even so, those trees have nothing on me.
Blessed as they are, all they get to hold today is a sick man’s attention &,
maybe, a few birds.

After reading still life w/ wet gems last night, I thought about my “how I see” project and the idea of writing around landscape and still life paintings — maybe portraits, too?

swim: 2 loops
lake nokomis open swim
81 degrees
water temp: 68 degrees

Open swim! Open swim! Open swim! There aren’t enough exclamation points to convey my joy over another summer of swimming across the lake. I swam 2 loops without stopping at the beach in-between. It felt good and then it didn’t and then it did again. Sore arms, the strange feeling of muscles not worked for a year waking up again. Now, a warm buzz. With no access to a pool, I haven’t swum since last august, so I’m impressed that I did as much as I did. I didn’t worry about not seeing the buoys, even when I couldn’t. Just kept swimming and reached them. Hooray for swimming without seeing (much)! Hooray for Minneapolis Parks for keeping open swim the same! Hooray for my muscles and tendons and lungs enabling me to do this thing I love!

The water was a deep green-blue. I could see the milfoil reaching up from the bottom, looking ghostly. Also saw pale legs kicking in front of me. No fish, no dragonflies, no menacing swans.

sept 28/RUN

4.25 miles
river road trail, south/both sides of ford bridge/wabun park/turkey hollow/47th st/edund
51 degrees

Good-bye summer and hot, humid weather! Hello fall and winter and wonderful runs along the river! A good morning for a run, even if the wind was gusting and in my face for much of the second half. Heard geese honking in the sky and my shoes squeaking on the wet leaves. Dodged dropping acorns and swirling leaves. Every so often the sun came out–glorious. I think I remember the river occasionally glowing. Not too many people out on the trail. Running up the hill to the ford bridge, I saw a big turkey hanging out by a bench. I looked a couple of times to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing–was I? Who knows for sure. Ran over the ford bridge for the first time since February. Then ran under it and over it again on the other side, looking out at Locks and Dam #1. Took a walk break through turkey hollow (no turkeys there today). Almost forgot: heard some kids playing on the playing ground at Minnehaha Academy’s lower campus.

Here’s a beautiful opening to a poem by Carl Phillips, Wake Up:

The road down from everything even you had hardly dared
to hope for has its lonely stretches, yes, but it’s hard to feel alone
entirely: there’s a river that runs beside it the whole way down,
and there’s an over-song that keeps the river company: I’m leaves,
you’re the wind…

august 11/RUN

3.2 miles
turkey hollow loop
63 degrees

Beautiful morning! Calm, sunny, not too warm or crowded. Was able to run on the path above the river heading south. Encountered a few runners and bikers but was able to keep my distance. The river was glowing white, over half the sky green. Passed the tall old guy with the long legs made longer by old school running shorts and a torso made shorter by a tucked-in tank top–or should I call it a muscle shirt? The alliteration of tucked-in tank top sounds better. Passed the ridge above the oak savanna, the steps at 38th street, the bench near Folwell, the ancient boulder at 42nd. Crossed over by Becketwood to the paved trail on the other side of the road, then ran down the hill on Edmund to turkey hollow. No turkeys today. Ran up 47th, back to the river road, on the narrow grassy stretch between Becketwood and 42nd that Scott and I have named the gauntlet, and then back over to edmund.

Between 42nd and 36th, many of the houses on Edmund are modern and big–lots of huge windows and intensely colored doors (red, lime green) and inviting decks, funky chandeliers, and futura-fonted house numbers. From ages 5 to 9, I lived in a modern house in Hickory, North Carolina–2 1/2 levels, with open staircases you could hang from by your legs and that had hiding places behind them, several balconies, both inside on the top floor, and outside, above the private front patio, a stone fireplace you could walk behind, cubby holes, a screened-in porch off the kitchen on the second floor overlooking the neighbor’s pool, huge light fixtures that glowed like ghostly heads at night, awesomely 70’s zig zag wallpaper in the kitchen, a family room that could fit a 20 foot christmas tree. I loved that house and all of its quirks. I wonder, what quirks do the houses I ran by (and almost every day for the last 5 months) contain?

sound: buzzing bugs

Every August, there are still birds chirping and cooing and trilling, but they are harder to hear because of the relentless electric buzz of the bugs. Cicadas. There are 2 types of cicadas: those that appear every year (dog day) and those that emerge from underground in large numbers every 13-17 years (periodical). I just learned that in Minnesota we only ever get the dog day kind. And I am glad after reading about how many periodical cicadas can emerge, covering cars, sidewalks, and emitting obnoxious noises! I could hear their power line buzz as I ran. I don’t like the sound as much as the black capped chickadee’s call or the pew pew pew of the cardinal, but it doesn’t bother me. Whenever I think about cicadas, I remember my introduction to them: the 1986 movie, Lucas, which is set during a summer when a brood of periodical cicadas are emerging from the ground….Reading an article from the Smithsonian about how weird they are, I discovered zombie cicadas:

In recent years, researchers have unearthed peculiar and sometimes horrifying relationships between cicadas and fungi. Massospora fungi infect cicadas and hijack their bodies. The fungi can even synchronize to the cicada’s life cycle, staying dormant until the cicada is ready to emerge. Once active, they take over the bottom half of the cicada’s body while somehow keeping the cicada alive. The infected cicada flies away, spreading spores that infect future generations (Source).

Also, while early Americans despised cicadas, confusing them with plagues of locusts, the ancient Greeks loved cicadas, writing odes about them.

[the cry of the cicada]/ Matsuo Basho

The cry of the cicada
Gives us no sign
That presently it will die

august 10/RUN

3.1 miles
43rd ave, north/32nd st, east/edmund, south/33rd st, east/river road trail, south/42nd st, west/edmund, north
67 degrees
humidity: 80%

Non-stop thunder and lightening for most of the night. Wild. Unsettling to the dog, but no damage or power outages. This morning everything was wet and a darker (but not an ominous dark) green.

Ran north on 43rd until 32nd then turned right. I think this is my new usual route. Ran on 32nd to edmund, right before the river, and ran a block until crossing at 33rd to enter the trail. I decided today I would try to run the tunnel of trees and hope there weren’t too many people when I reached the narrowest parts. Success! Didn’t encounter anyone.

Ran past the old stone steps, past the concrete wall/ overlook/ bench that Delia likes to jump on, past the four barriers (2 walls, 2 fences), past the amphitheater of green air (the spot where the trees open up slightly to create wide space surrounded by trees, blocking out the sky but still feeling uncrowded), past the spot on the trail where you can just see the top of the hill. Beautiful! I had forgotten how much I love this stretch of the trail. Above the forest, on the edge of a ridge, looking out at endless layers of green with no floor and no sky. Tucked below the road, hidden behind a wall and a fence. Dark and mysterious. Quiet. Enough time alone to gain some peace, not enough to feel afraid (of critters* or lurking humans).

*Speaking of critters, I have seen, earlier this year in March, a coyote run down into the tunnel of trees. I was not running, but walking and was across the road. And yesterday, a jogger reported seeing a black bear near the Summit Monument overlooking the river on the east side close to the trail that’s part of one of my frequent (in non-COVID times) routes: the Ford loop! One more, less scary one: at least twice, while walking around the neighborhood, Scott and I saw an albino squirrel.

After the tunnel of trees, I ran through the welcoming oaks and above the ravine. I was surprised to not hear any water rushing out of the sewer pipe. Ran past the oak savanna–too many leaves to see anything, past the steps at 38th street, past the bench on the dirt path that links two steep hills each winding back down to the Winchell trail. Encountered some bikers who didn’t even try to move over for me and when I moved off the edge of the path to give them room, they biked even closer. Did this happen, or did it seem like it did because of my bad vision and lack of depth perception? People always seem too close to me with my messed up macular.

As I ran, I tried to recite “Push the button, hear the sound” again. I made it through several lines, but became distracted as I tried to avoid other people. It’s hard to recite poems and get lost in the words when you’re having to look out for other runners. Thinking about the poem and it’s refrain, Listen and can you hear?, I thought about what I’d like others to listen to by the river and what I wonder if they can hear:

Listen to the gravel crunching on the trail.
Can you hear the electric buzz of the cicadas, relentless and rumbling under everything?
Can you hear the rowers on the river?
Listen to the roller skier’s ski poles striking the ground.
Can you hear the poles clickity-clack or do they just clack, or only click?
Listen to the doppler effect on the bike’s speakers.
Can you hear the talk radio host yelling through someone’s phone?
Listen to the pileated woodpecker laughing at us.
Can you hear that circle of light on the surface of river inviting you in?
Can you hear your shadow running beside you?
Listen to the oaks exhaling.
Can you hear your lost innocence?
Can you still hear your mom’s voice? Her laugh? The way she said your name?
Can you hear the asphalt buckling?
Listen to “Black Wizard Wave” by Nur-d.

Earlier this morning, before heading out for my run, I came across–and not for the first time–Walt Whitman’s wonderful “Song of the Open Road”:

from Song of the Open Road/ Walt Whitman

3
You air that serves me with breath to speak!
You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape!
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!
I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me.

You flagg’d walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges!
You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships!

You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs!
You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!
You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!
You doors and ascending steps! you arches!
You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!
From all that has touch’d you I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me,
From the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me.

5
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,
Listening to others, considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently,but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.
I inhale great draughts of space,
The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.

I am larger, better than I thought,
I did not know I held so much goodness.

august 9/RUN

3.1 miles
43rd ave, north/32nd st, east/river road, south/42nd st, west/edmund, north
77 degrees
humidity: 80%
dew point: 70

Much warmer this morning. Still managed a 5k without stopping. As I ran down 32nd toward the river I thought about how glad I was that they had closed the road for the sewer work at 32nd instead of 33rd–that way I can run on a long block of the river road without worrying about cars. Then, when I reached the river, I saw that they had moved the road closure ahead to 33rd. No more running on the river road. Bummer.

Was able to run on the trail above the river from 36th to 42nd! Heard some rowers, saw some shining water. Glanced at the empty benches. Don’t remember hearing any birds or crunching on any acorns–they’re covering many of the sidewalks in the neighborhood. No roller skiers or music blasting from bike speakers. No big groups of runners or bikers.

Recited “Push the Button” one time and thought about the constant refrain throughout the poem, “Listen to the…” “Can you hear the…?” I’m curious about how Mort decided which things she wanted us to listen to and which things she wondered if we could hear:

Listen to…

the lorikeet’s whistling song
the ground giddy with thirst
the dog shit on the lawns, murderous water boatmen skimming the green pond
the casual racists in the family pub
the house Shiraz I drink as if it’s something’s blood
my fear, blooming in my chest, and how I water it
the noisy penguins on the ice
my late night online purchases
your half-sister hissing to her friends at 2 am
the panic in their emojis
the utter indifference of the stars
“The Trout” by Schubert
the blackbird’s chirpy song
that waltz by Paganini
the stage as we walk clear off the front of it

Can you hear…?

the call of the mynah bird
flamingos in the water
your small heart next to mine and the house breathing as it holds us
the chainsaw start
the roses rioting on the trellis
the sleepless girls in Attercliffe
the aspirin of the sun dissolving
your grandfather’s lost childhood
the suburban library shutting, the door closing, the books still breathing
your father lighting his first cigarette
the foxes mating all the way to oblivion
me holding you, closer than my life

And two variations on “Can you hear…?”:

O, can you hear the budget tightening?
Can you hear that, Alfie?

I’ll have to study this list some more, I guess, to find a pattern, if there is one. What’s the difference between the command, “listen” and the question, “can you hear?”

Here’s a quick draft of my homage to Mort’s original poem:

Listen to the black capped chickadee’s 2 note song.
Can you hear him posing a question to the gorge?
Can you hear the honking geese overhead?
Can you hear your lungs grasping for air
and the green leaves thickening as they hold us?
Can you hear the chainsaw start, the tight weave
of the savanna’s oak unraveling?
It’s August, thick, crowded. Listen
to the path, cluttered with acorns. Listen
to the sewer stink near the ravine, the sex-crazed
gnats swarming the hill. Can you hear
the virus spreading through the neighborhood?
Can you make a noise like a panicked rabbit? There are
sounds your tweet lacks names for.

july 14/RUN

3 miles
river road, south/north
73 degrees/ light rain
humidity: 89%/ dew point: 70

Woke up to darkness. Rain coming and staying all day. Decided to take Delia the dog out for a quick walk before it started. Not soon enough; by 1 block it was drizzling and by 2 blocks raining. We ran back. Delia did a great job–except for the time when she ran right in front of me and almost tripped me. Maybe I should try training her to run?

Running felt good so I decided if there was a break in the rain, I would go out for a run. There was and I did. Hardly anyone out by the gorge. I was able to run on the trail right above the river for most of the time. Hooray! I saw the river, heard some birds, ran by my favorite benches, heard the roar of the water gushing out of the sewer pipes down to the river near both ravines — at 36th and 42nd. And then, at the end, I ran through the Welcoming Oaks and greeted each one, “good morning!” “good morning!” “good morning!” Haven’t been able to do that in a while.

color

There’s something about cloudy, gray light that makes my vision even stranger than usual, especially when it comes to seeing colors. I am amazed that I can still see any color with almost all of my cones damaged. Here are some colors I saw this morning, some stranger than others:

From about 2 blocks away from the river road, I could see an orange sign for a pedestrian detour. So bright and so prominent, a glowing smudge in the midst of fuzzy dark green and gray.
Twice I encountered, from a distance of about 15-20 feet, a woman in blue running tights. As I approached her, seeing her through my central vision, the tights looked dark, almost navy blue. But when I saw her from the side, through my peripheral vision, the rights were a bright, electric blue. Blue is a strange color with my vision. Last winter, I used to walk by a house with lights in the shape of a peace sign. The circle was red, the inner sign blue. Looking at the sign straight on all I could see was a red circle. It wasn’t until I looked at it from the side that I could just barely see the blue lines.
A walker in a pink–or was it coral?–jacket.
The river was a pale blue, almost white in the gray light.

on the dream, forgiveness, and forgetting

Still thinking about Marie Howe and “The Meadow,” especially these lines, “My love, this might be all we know of forgiveness, this small time when you can forget who you are” and “Bedeviled, human, your plight, in waking, is to chose from the words even now asleep on your tongue, and to know that tangled among them and terribly new is the sentence that could change your life.” In yesterday’s entry in my plague notebook, I wrote: “We forget what we are because what we are are creatures attempting to find the right words to feel better — less alone, less suffering, less closer to death.”

I want to think more about the value of forgetting. Here’s a poem I’d like memorize to get me started:

Let It Be Forgotten/ SARA TEASDALE

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,
Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,
Let it be forgotten for ever and ever,
Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
Long and long ago,
As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall
In a long forgotten snow.

july 13/RUN

3 miles
44th ave, north/32nd st, east/river road, north/river road, south/38th st, west/river road, north
70 degrees
humidity: 77%/ dew point: 63

Another beautiful morning! Not much wind, not too hot, some shade. Ran past the aspen eyes and towards downtown, up the hill from under the lake street bridge, then turned around. I think I saw the river, or the idea of the river hiding behind the green. Recited “The Meadow” a few times during the first two miles of my run, then stopped to put on some music and sprinted up a hill while blasting Demi Levato’s “Sorry, not Sorry” — a great song to run to. I got it in my head yesterday after I responded to Scott about something jokingly rude I had just said with, “sorry, not sorry.”

At some point, as I was reciting it, I thought about the line, “The horses, sway-backed and self important, cannot design how the small white pony mysteriously escapes the fence everyday.” I wondered, isn’t small, as in “small white pony” redundant? Aren’t ponies always small? Would it flow as well without the extra syllable of small? Now, sitting here at my desk in the front room, listening to a young child right outside vacillate between cute, calling out “I Love You!” to his mom, and annoying, babbling in a high-pitched voice, I am also struck by Howe’s use of white. Nothing else in the poem has a color–no green meadow or dappled gray horses or golden hay or anything. Why is the pony singled out–given a color and a redundant size? With its mysterious escape, is it a ghost? Still thinking about this line: I like how she uses “design” in this sentence. And I love the self important, clueless horses and the next line’s follow-up: “This is a miracle just beyond their heavy-headed grasp.”

I’m trying to make sense of the meaning of this whole poem (admittedly, I feel like I’m often dense when it comes to understanding poetry) and I’m wondering if these three lines are the most important:

As we walk into words that have waited for us to enter them…
My love, this might be all we know of forgiveness, this small time when you forget what you are.
Bedeviled, human, your plight, when waking is to chose from the words that even now sleep on your tongue and to know that among them, tangled and terribly new, is the sentence that could change your life.

In our dreams, we can forget what we are (the meadow forgets how to make wildflowers, the horses are weary of hay, the wasps are tiny prop planes, the knock of a woodpecker becomes a phone ringing). But, we always wake up (the meadow thinks suddenly, “water, root, blossom,” the horses lie down in daisies and clover, we/humans suffer–moaning, and know we will die). The task as human is to find the right (?) words to give meaning to/transform what we are? Does that work? And how does this line fit in: “I want to add my cry to those who would speak for the sound alone”?

Discovered another delightful abecedarian!

Abecedarian For the Future/ Ada Limón

All the old gray gods have fallen
back to their static realms of myth
cleared from the benches, thrones,
dragged kicking to their strongest tombs,
each one grizzled by their swift exile
frayed, bedraggled, forced to kneel,
give up their guns, armor, swords,
hand over their passports, global security
identification, and be stripped bare.
Justice has relegated them to history,
kept nothing but the long rancorous
list of crimes (slaughterers all)
molded them into dull cement statues
not to worship. but as a warning most
ominous. Here stood Greed and his brother
Pride, note their glazed inhuman eyes,
question their puny stature now, how
rodent-like, how utterly overthrow-able.
Still, remember how long they ruled?
Tyrannical and blustering, claiming
universal power, until the kinder masses
voted the callous thin-lipped lizards out?
What a day that was! The end of hatred,
xenophobia, patriarchal authority–but
yes, we waited too long, first we had to
zero out, give up on becoming gods at all.

may 18/RUN

3.5 miles
47th st loop
54 degrees

Sunny but windy this morning. So green! Was able to run right above the river for a few minutes. Hardly any view, mostly variations of green. At one spot, near the bench next to the boulder, I caught a glimpse of the river. So bright, it was almost white. Heard some birds but cannot remember what kinds or what their songs sounded like. Encountered some bikers, walkers, runners, all from more than 6 feet of distance. Forgot to look for the turkeys down by the tree graveyard/turkey hollow (I think I might have named it turkey meadow last week, but I like turkey hollow better). Avoided the big muddy puddles in the grass on the dirt trail near Becketwood by running in the road. Don’t remember much else because I spent most of my time reciting the first half of my next green poem: What Would Root.

Reciting While Running: What Would Root/Katie Farris

Started memorizing this poem about an hour before my run. I decided because it was longer, I’d divide it up and only memorize the first half now, then the rest later. Love this poem! It helps so much to memorize it. It forces me to pay close attention to all the words and to do more than just try to get to the end–which is something that can happen when I’m reading.

When I was finished running, I recorded myself reciting it into my phone. I got most of it right–except for the title and a word here and there. I think I screwed it up partly because I was self-conscious, walking near (but not too near, always 10 feet away) to others. One day, I will not be self-conscious at all. I am already better than I used to be.

what would root, may 18

I like the line, “scolded by squirrels/in their priestly black, their white collars/wagging with the force of their scolding,” although I can’t picture these squirrels. None of the ones around me are priestly black with white collars–about once or twice a year I might see a black squirrel, but the ones in my yard and by the gorge are brown. My favorite lines today: “and stopped to lean against a rock/to scrub it (I thought) away. It was May/it was May, it was May” I love the assonance with stopped, rock, and thought and the rhyme with away and May. And I love the break and refrain of “it was May, it was May, it was May” I also like the line, “it was all green, really;/even the red was anti-green”

a word I didn’t know or know how to pronounce

penstemon: pen stee muhn [from Merriam Webster] “any of a genus (Penstemon) of perennial, chiefly North American herbs or low shrubs of the snapdragon family typically with spikes of showy, two-lipped, tubular flowers with two lobes on the upper lip and three lobes on the lower lip”

Also called beardtongue because the flower often looks like an open mouth with a fuzzy tongue protruding.

Have I seen any of these? Probably, although it’s hard for me to tell from the images I found.

may 6/RUN

3.5 miles
47th ave loop, short
52 degrees

Beautiful sunny breezy morning. A little more crowded than usual, but still got over 6 feet of distance from everyone. Heard a black capped chickadee calling out and waiting for an answer 3 times as I started my run:

Hello?
Hello?
Hello?
Listen.

Did I notice the river? I don’t remember.

The run was peaceful and relaxing but at moments, difficult and labored. I recited my poem–Ode to My Right Knee–a few times. Noticed how the alliteration for n was only 2 words: No noise. In some lines I found yesterday in my notes, I had 2 ns too: noisy nothingness

Anything else? Runners, bikers, and several pairs of walkers taking over the road. No turkeys. No way of seeing the river from high up on Edmund–too much green. Glanced at a few benches.

Thinking about green, here are a few lines about green in the spring, inspired by Rita Dove’s alliteration:

Ode to Green

Greedy green gluts gobbling gorges, grifting
vistas. Vast views vanished
or overrun. Orchestrated
take-overs: trees trimmed, tressed, twined,
voluminously vined.
Air altered. Advancing
leaves lining limbs
their thick thatches
blue-blocking blinding breathtaking.
Oh overcrowding obstruction! Oh
consuming, constricting color!

That’s all I have right now. I’ll keep working on it. I love the color green and seeing it in the spring, yet I dislike how excessive it is, how it overruns everything.

Started reading Marie Howe’s Magdalene last night. Wow! Love this poem:

Magdalene—The Seven Devils/ Marie Howe

“Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven devils had been cast out”

Luke 8:2.

The first was that I was very busy.

The second—I was different from you: whatever happened to you could
not happen to me, not like that.

The third—I worried.

The fourth—envy, disguised as compassion.

The fifth was that I refused to consider the quality of life of the aphid,
The aphid disgusted me. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The mosquito too—its face. And the ant—its bifurcated body.

Ok the first was that I was so busy.

The second that I might make the wrong choice,
because I had decided to take that plane that day,
that flight, before noon, so as to arrive early
and, I shouldn’t have wanted that.
The third was that if I walked past the certain place on the street
the house would blow up.

The fourth was that I was made of guts and blood with a thin layer
of skin lightly thrown over the whole thing.

The fifth was that the dead seemed more alive to me than the living

The sixth—if I touched my right arm I had to touch my left arm, and if I
touched the left arm a little harder than I’d first touched the right then I had
to retouch the left and then touch the right again so it would be even.

The seventh—I knew I was breathing the expelled breath of everything that
was alive, and I couldn’t stand it.
I wanted a sieve, a mask, a, I hate this word—cheesecloth—
to breath through that would trap it—whatever was inside everyone else that
entered me when I breathed in.

No. That was the first one.

The second was that I was so busy. I had no time. How had this happened?
How had our lives gotten like this?

The third was that I couldn’t eat food if I really saw it—distinct, separate
from me in a bowl or on a plate.

Ok. The first was that. I could never get to the end of the list.
The second was that the laundry was never finally done.

The third was that no one knew me, although they thought they did.
And that if people thought of me as little as I thought of them then what was
love?

The fourth was I didn’t belong to anyone. I wouldn’t allow myself to belong
to anyone.

The fifth was that I knew none of us could ever know what we didn’t know.

The sixth was that I projected onto others what I myself was feeling.

The seventh was the way my mother looked when she was dying,
the sound she made—her mouth wrenched to the right and cupped open
so as to take in as much air… the gurgling sound, so loud
we had to speak louder to hear each other over it.

And that I couldn’t stop hearing it—years later—grocery shopping, crossing the street—

No, not the sound—it was her body’s hunger
finally evident—what our mother had hidden all her life.

For months I dreamt of knucklebones and roots,
the slabs of sidewalk pushed up like crooked teeth by what grew underneath.

The underneath. That was the first devil. It was always with me
And that I didn’t think you—if I told you—would understand any of this—

april 17/RUN

4.4 miles
47th ave loop
37 degrees
Deaths from COVID-19: 111 (MN)/ 33,325 (US)

What a beautiful morning! Hardly any wind, lots of sun, uncrowded paths! Ran south right above the river. Pale blue. At one point, heard a woodpecker and thought about stopping to record it but didn’t. Looked longingly at the lone bench near Folwell with the clear, unobstructed view to the other side. Recited my poem of the week, LOVESONG OF THE SQUARE ROOT OF NEGATIVE ONE. I am the wind and the wind is invisible! Thought about the rhythm in the later lines:

As the hammer / 1 2 / ♫♫
is a hammer / 1 2 / ♫♫
when it hits the nail / 1 2 3 4 / ♫♩♩♩

and the nail / 1 2 / ♫ ♩
is a nail / 1 2 / ♫ ♩
when it meets the wood / ♫ ♩♩♩

Running on the road, after turning off of Edmund, I saw my shadow ahead of me. Hi friend! She led me until I turned again. Listened to my feet shuffle on the grit and my ponytail brush against the collar of my vest. Don’t remember hearing any crows or squirrels or geese–did I? Ran too early to see Dave, the Daily Walker. Didn’t see any roller skiers, but did see 1 or 2 bikers. 2 runners, one with a bright red shirt on.

Thought about the poem I’m working on and that I posted yesterday about sinking. I’m thinking of changing goo to jelly. Also, I’m not sure I like starting with think–I did it partly as a rhyme with sink but I’m not sure now. Here’s different version, in a different form. Instead of cinquains, I’m using couplets:

How to Sink/ Sara Lynne Puotinen (draft 2)

with Paul Tran

Try to recall when your son was young and so upset
all he could do was turn to jelly and ooze

down the couch in surrender — not giving in
but giving up control, a puddle of body parts

pooled at your feet. Learn to retreat like this.
Go to the gorge. Let your bones dissolve,

your legs liquefy. Submit to gravity. Slide
down. Reach the ground first, then seep deeper

through layers of loam, sandstone, shale. Drop lower
and lower, burrow through cracks and fissures, carve

out a way in and follow it farther. Go
so far inside that outside is another idea.

I think I like this version better, especially how some lines can stand alone and make interesting poems by themselves. Like, “out a way in and follow it farther” or “but giving up control, a puddle of body parts.”

It’s warmer today. Maybe spring is finally, actually coming?! Soon there will be flowers and green grass and bees. In honor of the bees, here are 2 wonderful poems by Emily Dickinson (found on this twitter thread about bee poems):

To make a prairie (1755)/ Emily Dickinson – 1830-1886

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

In the name of the Bee –/ Emily Dickinson

In the name of the Bee –
And of the Butterfly –
And of the Breeze – Amen!

4.5 milesveterans home59 degreespoor air quality