Tag: Emily Dickinson

feb 16/RUN

note: I’m starting this post at 9:50 am. The temp is 4 degrees / fees like -11. The wind is 11 mph with gusts up to 20 mph. At this point, I’m thinking I will run inside on the treadmill. Will I, or will some part of me convince the rest to run outside?

3.5 miles
ford bridge and back
7 degrees / feels like -10
50% snow-covered

We did it. Good job legs and lungs and heart, you convinced brain that we really needed to be outside this late morning! Almost all of the layers were on: 2 pairs of black running tights; dark gray tank top; green long-sleeved shirt; orange pullover; dark purplish/blueish/grayish pullover with hood; purple jacket; orange striped buff; black fleece cap with ear flaps; black gloves; pink striped gloves; 2 pairs of socks — gray (long) / black (short). At times, I was too warm.

It was wonderful and sometimes hard, especially when I was running into the wind on the way back. It was also bright — glad I had my sunglasses. Encountered someone in orange with their hand up to shield their eyes as they walked south. Saw the round shadow of a street lamp and the jagged shadow of a small tree. Passed a group of four walkers, laughing and yelling and having fun on the double bridge.

Did I think about purple at all? I can’t remember now. The only color I recall noticing was orange.

the purple hour (15th and 16th of feb)

3:38 am / dining room / 15 feb

the heat turnning on, the house shifting settling, my legs restless
purple mountains — in Japan, looking out at the mountains, different shades of purple — fall, 1994
Emily Dickinson purple — sunsets and sunrises
someone shoveling at 4 am

[discussion below added at 10:30 am on 16 feb]

Where Ships of Purple—gently toss — / Emily Dickinson

Where Ships of Purple—gently toss —
On Seas of Daffodil—
Fantastic Sailors—mingle—
And then—the Wharf is still!
F296 (1862) 265

No one does sunsets better than Dickinson. I wonder if Amherst sunsets are still so colorful. Where I’ve lived sunsets are primarily red, pink, and gold, but the ones she describes often have purple. This one does, too. Here she sees great ships, large purple clouds, gently tossing in their moorings. The sea beneath them is tinted golden, “Daffodil,” from the setting sun. The mingling and fantastic sailors are no doubt smaller clouds that move among the larger ship-like ones, their shapes constantly changing. When the sun sets the sky turns dark and “the Wharf is still!”

the prowling bee

The prowling bee has been such a wonderful resource for me. Reading the comments for this poem, there was speculation about why the Amherst sunsets were so brilliant and purple:

Romantic era sunsets WERE particularly vivid, due to volcanic ash from several cataclysmic eruptions worldwide. The Hudson River School artists and their sunsets might not have been hyperbole, after all, nor were ED purple sunsets.

Another commenter doubted this suggestion, so I did a quick search and found a pop science article about a study on sunset paintings and volcanic ash: How Paintings of Sunset Immortalize Past Volcanic Eruptions

Volcanoes can cause some of the world’s most spectacular sunsets. An eruption spews small particles of gas, dust and ash, called aerosols, high into the atmosphere where they can spread around the world. The particles can’t be seen during the day, but about 15 minutes after sunset, when conditions are right, these aerosols can light up the sky in brilliant “afterglows” of pink, purple, red or orange.

The impact of climate/climate disruptions on how we see color? Fascinating. Earlier this morning, while doing my “on this day” practice, I reread my entry from 16 feb 2024. In it, I described a photo I took above the gorge.

The most important thing about this image is how the branches create a net which mimics how my vision often works — I can almost see what’s there, but not quite. Secondary, but connected, is the feeling of being disoriented, off, almost but not quite, untethered, which comes from swirling forms and the climate crisis — there’s almost always snow on tthe ground here in February. Where are my Minnesota winters?

This last bit about climate crisis and lack of snow returns me to the ash in the sky and its effect on how 19th century artists saw and depicted the world. Many places to go with this, for now I’m thinking about how my vision loss (or the making strange of my vision) has enabled me to be more open (than many people with “normal” vision) to understanding vision as complex and not as simple or straightforward as “what you see is what you get.” Does that make sense?

1:50 am / dining room / 16 feb

doorways/thresholds are definitely purple — a deep, dark purple
the air above the gorge: different versions (tints/shades) of purple
purple hums, a soft lavender static in my ears
lachrymose purple 
originally wrote violet static, but looked up the color again and thought it was too dark for the static I was hearing in my head

9:46 am / front room / 16 feb

Thought more about violet. Decided to search, “Alice Oswald violet.” Found this beautiful poem:

Violet/ Alice Oswald

Recently fallen, still with wings out,

she spoke her name to summon us to her darkness.

Not wanting to be seen, but not uncurious,

she spoke her name and let her purple deep eye-pupil

be peered into.

‘Violet,’ she said

and showed her heart under its leaf.

Then she leant a little frightened forwards

and picked a hand to pick her.

And her horrified mouseface, sniffed and lifted close,

let its gloom be taken and all the sugar licked off its strangeness

while we all stood there saying, ‘Violet! Violet!’

fingering her blue bruised skin.

Finally she mentioned

the name of her name

which was something so pin-sharp,

in such a last gasp of a previously unknown language,

it could only be spoken as a scent,

it could only be heard as our amazement.

“purple deep eye pupil”: so good!

“the name of her name” — I wrote in my notes: the flower is never one solid, consistent color — the color is an abstraction, a taking one part for the whole, a disconnection — to name a color is to reduce the experience and perception of that color to one thing — colors cannot be fully named

What is lost — in our perception, experience of the world — when we reduce what we see to a fixed color/fixed name?

This question reminds me of something I read in Turning to Stone on the importance of naming yesterday:

The names themselves are, of course, human constructs, but the act of naming requires making distinctions that sharpen the powers of observation.

*

Taxonomy is comforting because it creates a sense of control and finitude in a chaotic and open-ended world.

Turning to Stone / Marcia Bjornerud

Lists! I love lists. My lists aren’t taxonomies, but something else . . .

The proper name of God is a list.

Valentina Izmirlieva in Aster of Ceremonies

Once I get the audiobook of Aster of Ceremonies, I want to put name as taxonomy and control in conversation with JJJJJerome Ellis’ “Liturgy of the Name” and “Benediction.”

feb 14/RUN

4.5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
18 degrees / feels like 6

The bike path was clear and not crowded. The air was cold. I heard a few birds, kids on the playground, dry leaves still on the trees imitating the waterfall. My legs felt heavy, my lower back a little sore. Waved a greeting to almost everyone I encountered. Thought maybe I heard some kids on the sledding hill at minnehaha park but couldn’t see anyone.

About a mile in, I started thinking about how purple represents both very hot temperatures and very cold ones. Purple = extreme. Then I thought about Basho’s line about poetry as “a fireplace in summer, a fan in winter.”

small victories: thought about stopping to walk under the ford bridge but kept going until I reached my favorite observation spot, stopped to put in a playlist, then kept running until I reached the double bridge. also: have mostly reached my winter goal of lowering my average heart run to under 160 — today it was 157.

10 Things

  1. cloud-covered sun
  2. yellowed leaves on an otherwise bare tree — a compliment to the violet air
  3. the river was covered in white and looked wider and colder than usual
  4. at least 10 people were standing near my favorite observation spot by the falls
  5. through the slats of the double bridge on the walking side I noticed bright blue graffiti
  6. one car was parked in the far parking lot at the top of the sledding hill
  7. the bright pink plastic bag I mentioned last week was further in the woods today — was it filled with snow?
  8. the falls were frozen and not falling
  9. stopped at the bench above the edge of the world: open, empty, a few tracks in the snow
  10. a small part of the fence near 38th is missing a panel

the purple hour — 2 days

3:18 am (bedroom floor) / 13 jan 2025

Still life painting
Heavy shadows and light

Sitting in the dark, wanting to keep the quiet and how I’ve adjusted to the dark, I’m reluctant to take out my iPad and write or to speak into my phone. Now, later (10:00 am) in the morning, I remember the moon (a full moon!) coming through the slats — not as dramatically as the past few nights — and the window-sized square of light with its soft slat shadows and the deep, solid shadow of the couch and the dark almost emptiness of the closet — almost empty because I could see the hint (inkling?) of the exercise ball with the slightest outline of light. The image of the ball just barely emerging from the shadow reminded me of a still life painting — the one that Diane Seuss writes about in Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber/ Diane Seuss (see 3 may 2024).

At night, when others are asleep and it’s more dark than light, the world stills for my restless eyes. The static stops. Finally objects freeze. Mostly I do too. A chance to look for longer, to stare and study.

I like “seeing” the darkness in the closet — its accordion doors wide open — as a deep purple. It’s not pure black; there’s color there but it’s dark and deep.

Writing this last sentence prompted me to search for Monet and purple. Why? I can’t remember now, a few minutes later. Jackpot. First, a quotation wrongly attributed to Claude Monet on the search, but actually spoken by Manet — poor Manet. How often is he overshadowed by Monet? Anyway, here’s the quotation:

I have finally discovered the true colour of the atmosphere. It’s violet. Fresh air is violet. I found it! Three years from now everyone will do violet!

found in The Secret Lives of Color, which sites Bright Earth: The Invention of Color, 208.

Bright Earth? This books looks great. Just requested it from my local library!

The impressionists were enamored with violet. Critics claimed they were afflicted with violettomania. Some theories on why:

  • a belief that shadows were never merely black or gray but colored — this sounds familiar!
  • complementary colors: bright yellow and soft purple. Robin Wall Kimmerer and Goldenrods and Asters!
  • vision problems — Monet and cataracts

*

Talking with my sister on the phone in the afternoon about my purple hour, she mentioned a paint color made from human remains. I think she meant this one:

Caput mortuum, Latin for “dead head,” is a dark brown paint that looks violet in some lights, maroon in others. It is earthy and intense, and like many browns, it can run in opposite chromatic directions when diluted. Some versions of caput mortuum paint tend toward the yellow end of the spectrum, while others wash into a light, yet slightly murky lavender. Despite its foreboding name and strange history, it is a rather simple, homey color. The substance reached the height of its popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries. It gets its hue from pulverized, mummified bodies (both human and feline) and its name from alchemy.

source

2:06 am / dining room / 14 feb

That moon! noticed a thin line of light on the kitchen floor then went over to the side (south facing) window and noticed the moon through the thick wooden slats. wow!
sitting at the dining room table, the heat kicked in — creaking everywhere through the vents. I have a short, repeated passage from one of our community band pieces running through my head. looking off to the side I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror, my face-blob glowing from the computer screen — wistful wisteria — all parts of wisteria are toxic to humans — small purple flowers

I’m not sure why the phrase “wistful wisteria” popped into my head. Where do I know wisteria from? Searched for poetry wisteria and found a poem by Lucie Brock-Broido, Extreme Wisteria

Wisteria is, first: a hardy, deciduous, capable-of-earnest-grasping shrub which bears small flowers. After that, it can be pressed (violently if you will) into an attar of its former self. In this poem, wisteria is also a state (of mind), the place one heads toward when feeling wistful.”

QA with Lucie Brock-Broido

7:53 am / dining room / 14 feb

  • aubergine, agitated, almost/approximate
  • bathos, bruised
  • cancer: pancreatic, cough medication
  • Dino or Daphne, deep
  • eggplant, emperor, Easter dress
  • fibs faint falsehoods, fake fruit flavor, FWA’s favorite color
  • Grape Ape, grief, (ornamental) grass
  • heliotrope, haze, heaviness, hair color?!
  • iris, ink, iffy, iodine
  • jealousy, jazz, jackets
  • kingly, Kristen’s post-college car
  • lilac, lavender, Lumpy Space Princess
  • mauve, magenta, mold, mystery, magic
  • non (binary/entity/sense)
  • orchid, outrage(ous)
  • pansy, petunia, plum (fruit and Professor)
  • queer, question
  • restless, rusty/rusted
  • shadows, slant, snail-snot, scar
  • Tyranian, tantrums, teletubby, toe
  • unfenced, undulating, underwater, unique, uncertain, undecided
  • violet, violence, vapor
  • wisteria, wispy, whelk, wood with soft inhabitants, wet, wild
  • eXcessive, exasperated, extremities — oxygen-starved, excess
  • yellow’s compliment, yelling
  • zeal

10:30 / front room, my desk / 14 feb

Wandering with purple: Part of this purple hour project, part of any of my projects really, is to find reasons to wander and wonder about new, unexpected things that I might not otherwise encounter or care about. Mission accomplished! It started last night with a random phrase that whispered to me, wistful wisteria. This led to reading about the purple-flowered vine, wisteria, then Lucie Brock-Broido’s poem, then her Q&A about the poem in which they discuss Emily Dickinson, especially her poem, “Essential Oils — are wrung –“. Then the idea of ED as a hard nut to crack. Then this line from some commentary on ED:

When I read Walt Whitman, we jauntily walk side by side down the road within his multitudinous world of wonder. When I read Dickinson, I don’t know if I am inside her mind or if she is inside mine. But I am always in a mysterious, perplexing, deeply thought-provoking, sometimes scary but always beautiful place.

source

Which led me back to the Q&A:

I think we’re all in conversation on the page with that which came before us, or even during us. We inherit whatever canon we’re in the midst of, a great collective influenza.

*

What I mean to say is that, in my own work, often, I may have been with Dickinson, but she was not with me.

jan 30/RUN

5.25 miles
ford loop
38 degrees

38 degrees! Sun and hardly any wind and less layers. The snow is almost all melted and all the paths were clear. I repeated yesterday’s experiment: run a mile; stop to walk, pull out my phone, and recite an ED poem into it; start running again (repeat, 5 times total). Today I recited: We Grow Accustomed to the Dark; A Murmur in the Trees — to note; I Felt a Funeral in my Brain; I heard a Fly buzz when I died; and A lane of yellow led the Eye. Like yesterday, it helped me to stay steady with my pace. The lines that stuck with me the most are at the end of A Murmur in the Trees — to note:

But then I promised n’ere to tell
How could I break my word
So go your way and I’ll go mine
No fear you’ll miss the road

I thought about this road in relation to the road in We Grow Accustomed:

A Moment — We uncertain step
For newness of the Night
Then fit our vision to the Dark
And meet the road erect

You adjust and get back on the road, where life steps almost straight (the ending line of “We Grow”), and I’ll stay here in the Dark with the little men in their little houses and the robins in their trundle bed and this whimsical, strange world (images from A Murmur).

10 Things

  1. my shadow, far below in the ravine near Shadow Falls
  2. the view from the top of the hill after climbing from under the lake/marshall bridge — wide, open, iced surface
  3. the bells of St. Thomas ringing
  4. running on the east side, across the river from one of the schools, I could hear the kids on the playground all the way over here
  5. my shadow, on the railing of the ford bridge — I kept looking down to the iced river, searching for more of my shadow on the shadow of the bridge’s railing
  6. the river, near the ford bridge was all white, but further north, it was gray with white splotches
  7. the port a potty at the Monument was covered in black graffiti and the door didn’t look like it could fully shut
  8. close to where I heard the kids across the gorge, I noticed how steep the slope was — don’t get too close to this edge!
  9. a man below on the Winchell trail talking to little kid (or a dog?) — momma’s coming — as a woman approached them
  10. a kid on the playground: it’s soooo warm!

memory

Memory can edit reality in some such way and then the edited version is too good to let go. Memory makes what it needs to make.

A Lecture on Corners/ Anne Carson

I picked up Naomi Cohn’s The Braille Encyclopedia at Moon Palace last night!

Now, in my sixties, the Velcro of memory has lost its grip, glutted with lint. This makes learning braille–all its letters, punctuation, symbols, contractions, and their rules for use–puzzling. The mind’s memory fail. What takes over? Muscle memory, body memory, skin memory. My fingertip remembers more braille than my hippocampus.

The Braille Encyclopedia/ Naomi Cohn

So many different types of memory to think about!

An alternative to vision.

The Braille Encyclopedia/ Naomi Cohn

I rely on memory a lot to help me see.

jan 29/RUN

5.3 miles
bottom franklin hill and back
33 degrees

Sun! Above freezing! Clear walking paths! Shadows! A nice, relaxed run.

a new experiment

I tried something new today. I picked 5 Emily Dickinson poems that I have memorized, then stopped after each mile to recite one of them into my phone. Mile 1, “Before I got my eye put out”; Mile 2, “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark”; Mile 3, “A Murmur in the Trees”; Mile 4, “A Felt a Funeral in my Brain”; and Mile 5, “A Heard a Fly Buzz when I died.” I didn’t have to stop right at the end of the mile, but just sometime before the next mile. It was fun and made the run go by faster. Sometimes I thought about what I had just recited as I ran, sometimes I didn’t. After “Murmur” I thought about ways to mash its lines up with “We Grow Accustomed” — maybe I’ll work on that more today?

assessment: This experiment was fun and helpfully distracting. I’ll definitely try it again!

10 Things

  1. Hi Dave!
  2. not much snow left on the walking path or the grass — in some places, a lumpy line of snow in the middle of the walking path from where the plow pushed the snow off of the biking trail
  3. a few slippery spots where water was barely ice
  4. the river was mostly frozen with a few spots of dark water
  5. a bird singing, cheeseburger or tea kettle — I guess that’s a chickadee?
  6. the thump of my zipper pull against by neck or chest
  7. a fat bike laboring by — slow and steady
  8. at least one bench was occupied — a person and two dogs
  9. my shadow beside me — sharp and erect
  10. another lone black glove — small

For part of the run, I focused on my rhythmic breathing: 1 2 3 in / 1 2 out. I began chanting: mystery is solved, then history is fact?, then history is wrong, then whose history is that? (which doesn’t quite fit the 3/2), whose story is told, and at whose expense?

jan 4/WALK

20 minutes with Delia
neighborhood
7 degrees / feels like 4

Winter! Heading north, an arctic wind, but otherwise, not bad. Warm sun, no snow. I love being outside and moving. A thought: I should commit to doing one or two long-ish walks each week to somewhere. The library? A coffee place?

10 Things

  1. dead, brown leaves on top of a pile of crusty snow
  2. a high-pitched, quiet whine from a truck on the next block
  3. the bare, gnarled, tall branches of the oak tree on the corner
  4. 2 green dumpsters on the sidewalk outside of Turtle Bread
  5. almost stumbling as I stepped on a small rock or hard chunk of snow
  6. a neighbor on the next block having an animated conversation with the mailman
  7. bark! — Delia the dog unexpectedly barking at them from across the street
  8. bark! bark! bark! — a dog in a backyard calling out to Delia
  9. the tree on the corner across from the Blue Door — dead, most of it trimmed away, more than a stump with a few dead branches still remaining
  10. the sun! heading south, warming my face and making it difficult to see if anyone was approaching

While tagging old entries with “remember/forget,” I came across Emily Dickinson’s poem about forget-me-nots on 2 march 2021, which helped me to remember that I was thinking about it — vaguely — as I ran yesterday!

There are spaces for living
and spaces for forgetting.
Sometimes they’re the same.
(Voiceover/ Rita Dove)

dec 12/BIKERUN

25 minute bike ride
1.5 mile run
basement
outside: 2 degrees / feels like -8
dew point: -6

No running outside for me today. Earlier this morning, when I would have gone out for a run, it felt like -21. Brrrr. I did a short bike and a run in the basement. I don’t remember noticing or thinking about much. One thought: I wonder where the mouse who lives down here is right now? This morning, Scott discovered evidence that it had made its way upstairs: 3 pebbles of poop on the cutting board. Gross!

Watched a T 100 triathlon race while I biked and Taylor Swift’s “Reputation” as I ran.

Here’s a poem I found about Emily Dickinson yesterday:

Emily Dickinson at the Poetry Slam/ Dan Vera

I will tell you why she rarely ventured from her house.
It happened like this:

One day she took the train to Boston,
made her way to the darkened room,
put her name down in cursive script
and waited her turn.

When they read her name aloud
she made her way to the stage
straightened the papers in her hands —
pages and envelopes, the backs of grocery bills,
she closed her eyes for a minute,
took a breath,
and began.

From her mouth perfect words exploded,
intact formulas of light and darkness.
She dared to rhyme with words like cochineal
and described the skies like diadem.
Obscurely worded incantations filled the room
with an alchemy that made the very molecules quake.

The solitary words she handled
in her upstairs room with keen precision
came rumbling out to make the electric lights flicker.

40 members of the audience
were treated for hypertension.
20 year old dark haired beauties found their heads
had turned a Moses White.

Her second poem erased the memory of every cellphone
in the nightclub,
and by the fourth line of the sixth verse
the grandmother in the upstairs apartment
had been cured of her rheumatism.

The papers reported the power outages.
The area hospitals taxed their emergency generators
and sirens were heard to wail through the night.

Quietly she made her way to the exit,
walked to the terminal and rode back to Amherst.

She never left her room again
and never read such syllables aloud.

sept 5/WALK

35 minutes
neighborhood, with Delia the dog
68 degrees

Today, I convinced an anxiety-ridden dog to go for a walk. What a beautiful, late summer/early fall morning! Wow. Our pace was slow, with Delia stopping to “read the news” at every tree, but I didn’t mind. I tried to stand straight and felt the calm in my core — a stillness so sweet it almost buzzed or hummed. Speaking of buzz, Delia stopped to smell some pink zinias and right next to her nose a bumble bee hovered. Only for a moment, then it flew off to the next blossom.

10 Things

  1. a city pick-up truck with a yellow arrow flashing on the bumper as it drove by
  2. a thick and long root sticking out of some boulevard dirt where the grass had been removed
  3. an shaded balcony on the second floor of a house across from 7 Oaks
  4. a chattering squirrel
  5. the steady, relaxed rhythm of a shirtless runner with a baseball cap on backwards
  6. big, bright pinkish-red blooms, emerging from a bush
  7. soft shadows cast across a big boulder
  8. a shaggy, scruffy tree, needing a shave, leaves covering the trunk and whole branches
  9. a steel planter on a boulevard filled with carrot greens, looking to my untrained eye like they were ready to be picked
  10. a neighbor across the alley dumping some cans in his recycling bin — hello! / hi!

Found this poem the other day, Painblank/ Daniel Borzutsky. So good! Instead of posting the entire poem, here’s the author’s helpful description:

About this Poem

I have said Emily Dickinson’s line ‘Pain has an element of blank’ in my head thousands of times…. I don’t know how many times I have tried to make sense of something only to conclude that the best poetic solution available is to say that it’s blank—the blank in the blank of my blank, the blankest of times, the blankness into which we all digress. Perhaps the thing about Dickinson’s poem is the way in which pain is enveloped so completely by, well, pain itself. But also, the problem of pain’s untranslatability, its blankness, resides in the sounds and symmetry of the words. What I’m suggesting in this translation of Dickinson’s Pain-Blank relationship is a reading and writing practice that believes in two things: that repetition is never repetition and that poetry, like pain and blankness, resides in the body. Perhaps poetry has the ability—definitely for the writer and perhaps for the reader—to assimilate into the body, to become inseparable from it, to become a language that is ingested through sonic relationships that have an effect beyond time, logic, and comprehension.

Daniel Borzutzky

And here’s the Emily Dickinson poem that inspired Borzutsky:

Pain–has an Element of Blank–/Emily Dickinson

Pain—has an Element of Blank— 
It cannot recollect 
When it begun—or if there were 
A time when it was not— 

It has no Future—but itself— 
Its Infinite Contain 
Its Past—enlightened to perceive 
New Periods—of Pain.

july 4/RUN

3.2 miles
trestle turn around
71 degrees / humidity: 78%
light rain

Raining all day today. After talking to FWA about how he likes to walk in the rain, I decided to run before the rain got heavy — thunderstorms are predicted in the late afternoon. I never mind running in the rain, but I’m usually reluctant to start in it. I’m glad I went for it today. What a beautiful green: deep, rich, fresh (but not refreshing!), comforting. The rain was light enough that I barely felt it — no soaked, clinging shirt of shorts (that happened a few weeks ago).

I’m not sure if it was raining all the time or it stopped sometimes or it was a combination of light rain with dripping trees. It was fun to run under and beside the trees when the rain-soaked leaves rustled. One time I misjudged how low a branch was and ran through it instead of under it — the cool water on my face was a surprise then a relief.

Under the lake street bridge somebody had parked a lime scooter in the middle of the walking path, forcing walkers/runners to veer out into the bike path. Dangerous — bikes bomb down the hill and cut close to the edge of the path without warning. Also, I can’t always see these scooters, or I can sort of see that they’re there, but can’t properly judge my distance from them. Hard to believe I haven’t already been impaled by the handlebars of one of these scooters (or bikes)!

I was not alone on the trail. Mostly walkers, many with umbrellas — no menacing blue umbrella guy who takes over the entire path and won’t budge an inch. Some runners, one talking on a bluetooth headset. No roller skiers. Any bikers? I can’t remember.

Bright car headlights. The whooshing of wheels through the puddles on the road.

In honor of a run in the rain (more fun to say than a rain-run, or is it?), I decided to look to my friend, Emily Dickinson, for a poem. She did not disappoint!

The Skies can’t keep their secret!/ Emily Dickinson

The Skies can’t keep their secret!

They tell it to the Hills –
The Hills just tell the Orchards –
And they—the Daffodils!



A Bird – by chance – that goes that way –
Soft overhears the whole – 

If I should bribe the little Bird – 

Who knows but she would tell?



I think I won’t – however – 

It’s finer – not to know –
If Summer were an Axiom –

What sorcery had snow?



So keep your secret – Father!
I would not – if I could – 

Know what the Sapphire Fellows, do,

In your new-fashioned world!

I found this poem on a favorite site, The Prowling Bee. I love how the blog author, Susan Kornfield, describes ED’s role as a poet:

 Dickinson again chooses the naturalist’s approach to the world rather than the academic’s or theologian’s. She observes in rich detail but is quite reluctant to draw conclusions. Better, to her, the wonder than to have the Latin names and dry scientific knowledge. I suppose this is a poet’s eye, looking at each event, each bit of the world that catches the eye, afresh. Those of us who name, categorize, and systemetize, inject at least one layer between us and the actual world. This preference for questions over answers is one reason why we love our poets!

the prowling Bee

This poem reminds me of Tony Hogland poem that I memorized as part of my 50 for 50: The Social Life of Water

All water is a part of other water.
Cloud talks to lake; mist
speaks quietly to creek.

Lake says something back to cloud,
and cloud listens.
No water is lonely water.

a few hours later: No thunder storms yet (at 2:40 pm), just a steady rain, a dark sky. I’m writing in this already finished post to add an article that I read on MPR News about Minneapolis Park Workers going on strike. The article offers some powerful descriptions of the difficult labor — physically, emotionally — that many park workers do.

Lane [a park worker] says he’s been with Minneapolis parks for more than a decade, arriving at 5 a.m. daily in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, during 2020 riots that followed the murder of George Floyd and regularly, when tasked to clean up homeless encampments.

It can be a grueling job, he said. He’s frequently cleaning up broken glass, needles and feces, ensuring the public spaces are safe to enjoy. On one of his most difficult days, Lane said he watched a woman die from an overdose. But like any other day on the job, he pushed on.

“Just to see the poverty was disheartening,” he said. “It touched me, man. I cried a few times just thinking about how people are living out here.

Hundreds of Minneapolis Park Workers Poised to Strike for a Week

Wow. I often notice and appreciate the park workers, but it’s usually related to tree-trimming or road patching. I don’t think enough about this other, less visible, labor. What a difficult task to clear out encampments, especially if you disagree with the decision that they need to be cleared out. Last month, while running with Scott, I recall pointing out all of the tents and tarps and stuff propped up near a trash can on the trail just above the gorge. I wasn’t sure why it was there, but now I imagine it was the aftermath from an encampment clear out by park workers.

april 29/RUN

4.2 miles
minnehaha falls and back
49 degrees / drizzle
wind: 7 mph / gusts: 14 mph

When I left for my run, I thought the rain had stopped. I was wrong, which was fine, because I don’t mind running in a drizzle, especially when it’s not too cold. Was it a drizzle? Maybe I’d call it a mist — a steady, soft spray that soaked my orange sweatshirt and mixed with the sweat on my face. Mostly I couldn’t see it; I just felt wet or damp or . . . I’ve got it: Moist! That’s how I felt as I ran today, moist. Scott hates this word, but I don’t mind it. What words do I detest? The only one I can think of immediately is nummy. Is that even a word?

So, everything, including me, was moist. Moist sidewalks, moist trails, moist air, moist shorts, running tights, socks. Other words for moist: soaked, damp, dank, saturated, humid

10 Moist Things

  1. the paved path — big puddles everywhere — the biggest puddle was right after the locks and dam no. 1 parking lot heading south
  2. the strip of dirt next to the paved path — muddy ruts
  3. the oak savanna — covered in leaves, light green and dripping
  4. the thick, gray air
  5. the laughing, water-logged voices of kids on the playground
  6. the slick road
  7. my running shoes
  8. my pony tail
  9. my orange sweatshirt
  10. the grass — a sponge . . . squish squish squish

A good run. I felt strong and springy — both because of the weather and my bouncy feet. I listened to the water gushing out of the sewer pipes and over the ledge as I ran to the falls. I put in my “It’s Windy” playlist on the way back. Most memorable song: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (11 on the Beaufort Scale for violent storm).

before the run

It’s almost the end of April (wow) and this morning, before my run, I finished my Beaufort Scale in Verse:

Beaufort Scale in Verse

0 — The Moment/Marie Howe

The whir of I should be, I should be, I should be

slows to silence,

the white cotton curtains hanging still.


1 — Long Life/Mary Oliver

We may be touched by the most powerful of suppositions—even to a certainty—as we stand in the rose petals of the sun and hear a murmur from the wind no louder than the sound it makes as it dozes under the bee’s winds. This, too, I suggest, is weather, and worthy of report.

2 — Nature Aria/Yi Lei

Autumn wind chases in
From all directions
And a thousand chaste leaves
Give way.

3 — And All Visible Signs Swept Away/Carl Phillips

I am stirred, I’m stir-able, I’m a wind-stirred thing

3 — When the Fact of Your Gaze Means Nothing, They You Are truly Alongside/Donika Kelly

the dry
sound of applause: leaves chapped/falling, an ending

4 — Enough/Jeffrey Harrison

The rising wind pulls you out of it,/and you look up to see a cloud of leaves
wheeling in sunlight, flickering against the blue
and lifting above the treetops, as if the whole day
were sighing, Let it go, let it go,
for this moment at least, let it all go

5 — Love Song for the Square Root of Negative One/Richard Siken

I am the wind and the wind is invisible, all the leaves tremble and I am invisible

6 — Wind/Emily Dickinson

When winds go round and round in bands,
And thrum upon the door,
And birds take places overhead,
To bear them orchestra

7 — Who Has the Wind?/Christina Rossetti

Who has seen the wind?
Neither You nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
the wind is passing by

8 — Fall/Edward Hirsch

Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless
Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:
It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies

9 — Plea to the Wind/Alice Oswald

Unglue the fog from the woods from the waist up
And speak disparagingly of leaves

10 — Plea to the Wind/Alice Oswald

Whip the green cloth off the hills

11 — Postscript/Seamus Heaney

So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter. . .
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

12 — Wave After Wave/M. Bartley Seigel

In a heartbeat, rollers mass two stories
trough to insatiate tempest, unquelled
by prayer nor cigarette, careless, mean,

a cold-blooded indifference so pure,
a strong swimmer won’t last ten wet minutes.
At the Keweenaw, surf pummels the stamp
sands with ochre fists, ore boats stack up lee

of the stone, and entire beaches stand up
to walk away.

april 22/RUN

3.8 miles
river road, north/south
62 degrees
wind: 16 mph / gusts: 30 mph

62 in bright sun with very little shade feels warm, too warm. Time to start running much earlier in the day. Other weather-related gripes? Had to hold onto my cap several times so it wouldn’t blow off.

Everything is slowly turning green, especially the floodplain forest. The trees are coming into leaf/like something almost being said.

Noticed some cool bird shadows, one on the road from a bird high up in the sky, another on the side of a house.

Heard something beeping as I ran under the trestle — was a train coming soon? Not that I could tell.

Listened to the wind running north, my “It’s Windy” playlist running south. Heard “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Wind of Change” and thought about how an answer blowing in the wind could mean two contradictory things at once: 1. the answer is coming, change is coming, a better, freer world is coming and 2. the answer is just blowing in the wind, out of reach, as futile/pointless as talking to the wind.

back to the Beaufort Scale

Last week I came up with a great plan to create a Beaufort scale out of poetry lines, but it stalled when I couldn’t figure one out for 1. Today I’ll try again.

But before I do that — I think it stalled also because I got side tracked by metaphor and figurative language. The Beaufort scale mostly uses literal language, describing the effects of wind on various things, like umbrellas or people trying to walk. Occasionally metaphor creeps in with the use of white horses to describe white caps on waves. Is this the only use of metaphor in the scale? No.

Use of metaphor in Beaufort Scale:

0 — “sea like a mirror”
1 — ripples like scales
2 — crests like glass
3 — foam like glass
4 — white horses

If I’m reading correctly, the for use on land section is all literal descriptions of wind’s effects: leaves rustling, trees being uprooted, roof tiles ripping off, inconvenient then difficult to walk. I like how 7 is inconvenient to walk, while 8 is difficult.

Okay, now back to a poem scale. Instead of literal descriptions, I think I’d like figurative ones. It’s more fun!

when the trees bow down their heads, the wind is passing by — “Who Has Seen the Wind?”/ Christina Rossetti

Would this be 5, “small trees in leaf start to sway”? or 6, “large branches in motion”? or 7, “whole trees in motion”?

I am the wind and the wind is invisible, all the leaves tremble and I am invisible — “Love Song for the Square Root of Negative One” / Richard Siken

2? “leaves rustle”? or 8, “”twigs break from trees”?

I am stirred, I’m stir-able, I’m a wind-stirred thing — “And All Visible Signs Swept Away” / Carl Phillips

Okay, think I know this one: “Leaves and small twigs in constant motion” (3).

Autumn wind chases in/From all directions/And a thousand chaste leaves/Give way. — “Nature Aria” / Yi Lei

I think this should be 2, “leaves rustle”

Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless/ Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:/It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies — “Fall” / Edward Hirsch

7, “inconvenient to walk against the wind”

the dry/sound of applause: leaves chapped/falling, an ending. — “When the Fact of Your Gaze Means Nothing, Then You Are Truly Alongside” / Donika Kelly

3: “leaves in constant motion”

Unglue the fog from the woods from the waist up/ And speak disparagingly of leaves — “Plea to the Wind” / Alice Oswald

This is a tough one for me. Is ungluing the fog violent or gentle? To speak disparagingly of the leaves seems less forceful than yelling at them — I think I’ll go with 4 “wind raises dust and loose paper, small branches move” but I could also go with 9, chimney pots and slates removed

Whip the green cloth off the hills — “Plea to the Wind” / Alice Oswald

10: “Trees uprooted, considerable structural damage occurs”

When winds go round and round in bands,/And thrum upon the door,/And birds take places overhead,/To bear them orchestra, — “Wind” / Emily Dickinson

6 — whistling in telegraph wires, umbrellas used with difficulty

So that the ocean on one side is wild/With foam and glitter. . ./As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways/ And catch the heart off guard and blow it open. — “Postscript” / Seamus Heaney

11: the sea is covered in foam, widespread damage

So, I already found a line last week for 0. With these lines above, I’m only missing 12. Although some of the lines above are used for multiple levels. I’ll fine tune that in a future entry. This was fun!

Here they are in order, so far:

0 —- the white cotton curtains hanging still

1 —

2 — Autumn wind chases in/From all directions/And a thousand chaste leaves/Give way. — “Nature Aria” / Yi Lei

3 — I am stirred, I’m stir-able, I’m a wind-stirred thing — “And All Visible Signs Swept Away” / Carl Phillips AND the dry/sound of applause: leaves chapped/falling, an ending. — “When the Fact of Your Gaze Means Nothing, Then You Are Truly Alongside” / Donika Kelly

4 —

5 — I am the wind and the wind is invisible, all the leaves tremble and I am invisible — “Love Song for the Square Root of Negative One” / Richard Siken

6 — When winds go round and round in bands,/And thrum upon the door,/And birds take places overhead,/To bear them orchestra, — “Wind” / Emily Dickinson

7 — when the trees bow down their heads, the wind is passing by — “Who Has Seen the Wind?”/ Christina Rossetti

8 — Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless/ Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:/It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies — “Fall” / Edward Hirsch

9 — Unglue the fog from the woods from the waist up/ And speak disparagingly of leaves — “Plea to the Wind” / Alice Oswald

10 — Whip the green cloth off the hills — “Plea to the Wind” / Alice Oswald

11 — So that the ocean on one side is wild/With foam and glitter. . ./As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways/ And catch the heart off guard and blow it open. — “Postscript” / Seamus Heaney

12 —