Tag: haunt

dec 2/RUN

4.5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
16 degrees
75% snow-covered

Running in the snow! I love it, especially with my new Yaktrax. Bought 2 pairs at Costco yesterday. The technology of them has improved since I bought my last pair a few years ago. My old pair has coils, almost like the spiral in a spiral notebook — and unfortunately like the spiral in a spiral notebook, they can get twisted and uncoil and poke you with their sharp ends. The new version has plastic knobs with metal, so no un-spiraling. Future Sara can discover the limits of this technology after we’ve run a hundred or so miles in them.

The river was completely covered with snow and ice. Closer to the falls, it was all white, closer to home, it was more gray. The falls and the creek were still flowing.

I wore more winter layers than I probably needed. I had on my below 0 layers: 2 pairs of black running tights, 2 long-sleeved shirts — one black, one green, a purple jacket, a gray buff, a black fleece-lined cap with ear flaps, 2 pairs of gloves — black, pink and white striped, hand warmers — they’re called “Little Hotties”. I probably wouldn’t have worn the hand warmers if FWA hadn’t opened a pair for his Delia walk, but it was nice to have them.

The view of the river, the gorge, the bare trees, the other side was beautiful. The air was a satisfying and sharp cold. Even better than that though were the birds. My favorite part of the run. Tiny birds, black blurs springing up from below as I stood above the waterfall and the creek below. Movement everywhere, flitting up and down and over and out. One time, a leaf imitating a bird. Running on the path, something landed just in front of me. I thought it was a bird, but it was a dead leaf that had been lifted then dropped by the wind. Another time, a tiny bird trying to outrun me on the ground, then leap-flying, then giving up and flying away.

Standing behind the Rachel Dow Memorial Bench, I witnessed another bird land on a tree branch. I only saw it by its movement, and then when it stopped, I believed it was still there. I think I could still see it there for a moment, but I’m not sure.

echolocation, again

One more manuscript to submit — the big one — by the end of this month. Trying to add a little bit more that’s explicitly about echolocation to reinforce it as the thread that stitches it all together. Decided to look up echolocation in the OED (online through my local library, which is awesome):

1944– The location of objects by means of the echo reflected from them by a sound-signal

Coined in an article from 1944 for Science, “Echolocation by Blind Men, Bats, and Radar” by Donald R. Griffin. Was able to get a pdf of it, thanks to RJP’s access to it through school. Maybe I’ll take a phrase from it, or I’ll make an erasure out of it, or? A few minutes later: I read it; it’s short, so I’m not sure about using it. I’ll read it again while I wait for Scott to be done with jazz band rehearsal tonight.

I’m also thinking of offering definitions at the beginning of echolocation, or maybe offering them at the end. Echolocation: locating objects by their echoes / echo location: locations where echoes dwell / echolocate: the act of using echoes / echolocated: the object/subject/something that has been located by echoes

nov 25/SWIM

1.5 loops
100 laps
ywca pool

Another great swim, another 1.5 loops to add to my tally of loops swum in 2025! The pool wasn’t too crowded. At one point, I was the only one in the water. When another swimmer arrived, she called out, we’ve got the whole pool to ourselves! I noticed the shadows on the pool floor flickering. A swimmer next to me, in a black t-shirt and green with a blue pattern, or blue with a green pattern, swam some freestyle, some breaststroke for the deeper part of the lap, then aqua jogged in the more shallow part. There was another male swimmer on the other side of him, swimming freestyle. At first I thought he was fast, and that it might be fun to race (in my head), but he turned out not to be fast enough to make it fun.

I wasn’t planning to, but I decided to do 2 sets of faster 200s: 3 x 200 on 3 min, with 30 sec rest. By decide I mean, the idea of swimming a faster 200 with the clock popped into my head early in my swim, so I did it. As I swam I thought, I should turn this into a set of 3. Then, in the last of the 3 I thought, I should do an easier 800 then do the set again. There was never really a plan, and even though I did choose to do it, I didn’t really; it just happened. As I swam, I thought about how it might help me mentally — specifically for endurance, but also for overall well-being — to add some harder swimming sets this winter instead of only moderate and steady lap after lap.

Anything else about the swim: as always, I saw orange everywhere. No fuzzy friends, I recall staring down at the drain and recalling how past Saras would imagine, only in a fearful flash, that Jaws would pop out of it. I lost track of my laps during a 200 and thought about how ridiculous it is that I can get off track just counting 8 laps — my miscounting today was not my first rodeo (the first time I remember hearing this delightful phrase was when my PT was letting me know that my kneecap had probably suffered a subluxation many times).

a draft almost done

The goal: be finished with this manuscript before the end of 2025. A thought this morning as I read through it and reflect on echolocation: it’s all about locating and being located in this place, in time and space. That locating involves:

  1. being the someone that makes sounds that will bounce off something else to create an echo, and the someone that listens for echoes made by others to locate something
  2. being the something that is located/placed/found
  3. being the echo that is created by one subject’s sound being received by another subject

Always, three. Immediately, I ‘m thinking about my poem, “An Exchange on the Winchell Trail” which involves a walker, a runner, and the You (in thank you/you’re welcome) that passes between them. And then I’m thinking about a line in my poem, “Everything”:

trinity: a baby owl in the hollow of a tree, the woman who points it out, the girl who stops to look

other threes: rock, river, air / girl, ghost, gorge / triple chants — 3 beats / grandfather, mother, daughter

Another think I’m working through: the little poems in which I take the words of another — mostly poets — and fit them into the form of my breathing pattern: 1 2 3 breathe / 1 2 breathe. The original name: form fitters. Can I think of a better one? Breaths? Breathing (with?) [author’s name]?

during the swim

Every so often, as I swam, I thought about naming my form fitters, “breathing with . . .”. I wondered if I should use only the poet’s first name, as a way to indicate more familiarity. Later after the swim, I mentioned it to RJP, and she thought “Breathing with Emily” sounded a little cheesy. I guess I agree and am thinking that “Breathing with Emily Dickinson” sounds better. Does it?

nov 19/RUN

5.2 miles
bottom and franklin and back
39 degrees

Another great late morning for a run. Overcast, possibly some drizzle/freezing rain/flurries. Not too cold, not too windy. Everything gray with brown and dull yellow. Listened to music because I had the King George song from Hamilton in my head — Billie Eilish, then my time and moment playlists. Even with the headphones in, I could hear a loud rumble below. Some sort of big machine doing something — was it at the white sands beach? I noticed a walker notice the sound too. He was startled, then confused, then curious as he peered down, trying to figure out what was causing the ruckus.

Witnessed a big, dark brown squirrel dart fast across my path. So fast that I didn’t have to stutter-step. Stopped at the bottom of the hill for a port-a-potty stop and to admire the river: blueish gray with little ripples. All open, no ice chunks yet. Stopped again at the sliding bench and in the tunnel of trees just above the floodplain forest. Took out my headphones and listened to the gorge. It sounded like it might be softly raining. Heard loud rustling, saw a flash of movement down below. Felt calm, relaxed.

At the sliding bench, I took a picture of the progress: open! no leaves to block out my view of the white sands beach, only thin branches that I can see through!

sliding bench / 19 nov 2025

One more thing about the run that I almost forgot. During the second half, after I climbed out of the flats, I felt fast and free. I had a huge smile on my face and was almost feeling a runner’s high. I haven’t experienced one of those in a while.

more of echo location

echolocation: using sonar flashes to “see” / interpreting echoes (as sound, as reverberations from the past) / navigation / location / locating and being located / finding being found / placing being placed / listen for echoes / gain substance and become an echo / repeat, not same but similar / the location of echoes / an indication of a big and open space / using words and sounds and syllables to place my self, to become more than ghost, girl

“Echolocation is the act of emitting a sound that bounces off an object or surface and comes back to you as an echo. This echo can help determine distance, location, motion, size, shape or surface material” (source).

Passive echolocation is sound that occur incidentally in the environment. As a car travels through a tunnel, the sound changes as the car enters the tunnel, travels through it and exits the tunnel. The sound your cane makes on the ground as you tap or roll will be different when you are next to a building compared to in an open area without obstruction.

Active echolocation, on the other hand, is sound you consciously produce like clapping your hands or clicking your tongue. Eventually, the sound you create bounces off other objects and comes back to you. Since your brain is familiar with the sounds you make, the echoes are easier for you to distinguish. By consistently emitting a sound and waiting for the sound to change, you can use active echolocation to help you navigate through an environment.

source

 How does the
sound of your
footsteps change
as you move
from tile floor
to carpet?
Listen to
the sound your
voice makes when
you are in
a small room
compared to
a large room.

Sit in a
moving car
passing by
parked cars. Roll
your window
down. Listen
to how sound
shifts between
each parked car
as you pass them.

you learn to
hear doorways
and walls and
wide open
spaces

Echolocation is an interesting metaphor within poetry and an important practical approach to navigating an unseen (or not seen) world.

Location for me is about recognition — being seen, offered a place in the family of things, and recognizing others (being held by/holding). And it is also about literally locating and navigating a world. As my vision fails, what other ways can I safely move through space?

And, here are a few lines from U A Fanthorpe that link echoes with ghosts and remind me of echolocation — especially those humpback whales:

Ghosts of past, present, future.
But the ones the living would like to meet are the echoes
Of moments of small dead joys still quick in the streets

These are the ghosts the living would prefer,
Ghosts who’d improve our ratings. Ghosts
Of the great innocent songs of freedom
That shoulder their way round the world like humpback whales

nov 6/RUN

3.35 miles
2 trails+
49 degrees / feels like 37
wind: 15 mph / gusts: 32 mph

Windy today. Had to make sure my hat was secure. Ran south to the start of the Winchell Trail. Stopped to admire the river — a clearer view, with far fewer leaves. Stopped again, a few minutes later, to study a felled tree. Yesterday, we (me, Scott, FWA) had seen park workers with chainsaws and a truck with a ladder around here as we drove by. This must be one of the trees they cut down. I felt a little safer running through this section in the strong winds, knowing that the tree workers had just been here yesterday removing sprawling branches and leaning trees.

added a few hours later: this came up on my instagram feed. I love these stories and learning more about what park workers do!

The trail was covered in leaves, so I couldn’t see if there were any potholes or big cracks. Of course, I often can’t see them even if the path is clear. So I run lightly and carefully. The worst part of the trail was the graveled bit in the ravine. Ouch! A few times my feet landed on the sharp end of a stone.

10 Things

  1. above the floodplain forest, looking out, no leaves, small branches all around created a veil of mesh, making everything look fuzzy
  2. the wind rushing through the leaves on the bluff, or was it water seeping out of the limestone?
  3. the voices of laughing kids at the playground
  4. swirling leaves
  5. leaves, floating gently
  6. voices above me
  7. a biker with their headlight, their wheel crossing over and onto the walking path
  8. a short, all-white animal on the trail — a dog? no a little kid in a white snowsuit
  9. the limestone ledge in the ravine looking dark and cavernous
  10. something clanging down below near the old stone steps — a dog collar?

cells

1 — juliana spahr

the opening lines of poemwrittenafterseptember11/2001 / juliana spahr

There are these things:

cells, the movement of cells and the division of cells

and then the general beating of circulation

and hands, and body, and feet

and skin that surrounds hands, body, feet.

This is a shape,

a shape of blood beating and cells dividing. 

But outside of this shape is space.

—

cells
the movement of cells
the division of cells

2 — how much of us is not us?

57%. 43% of a human body is made up of human cells, the rest is: “bacteria, viruses, fungi and archaea (organisms originally misclassified as bacteria)” (More than half of your body is not human).

the importance of microbiomes

3 — L Niedecker and dwelling with place

our bodies as place or space (see J Spahr up above)

      It all comes down
to the family

‘We have a lovely
finite parentage–
mineral

vegetable
animal’ 3

Instead of fretting over how such a finite parentage might threaten our “humaniqueness,” Niedecker welcomes our bond with nonhuman life and seeks instead to endow us, as she writes in “Paean to Place,” with a deeper appreciation for the “sea water running / in [our] veins.”

She also insists upon the necessity of our learning to dwell with other biotic elements who share our land-community, including what she calls in one poem “our relative the air” and “our rich friend / silt.”

—

Niedecker’s portrayal of living with beings and things in our environment is not merely a poetic metaphor; it also finds support in the field of biology. We now understand that even our bodies, the things we think of as most us, are in fact shared organisms, with trillions of microbacteria colonizing our guts in such numbers that they may potentially outnumber our own cells. 

Dwelling with Place: Lorine Niedecker’s Ecopoetics

some rambling: And now I’m thinking about all of this and wondering if it fits with Girl Ghost Gorge or is part of a new (series of) poems? It does, I think, in terms of the relationship between the girl and the ghost and the gorge and how the speaker/writer/Sara imagines herself as all three yet also wants to assert a Sara-self (Girl). I like the idea of composing this poem, and assertion of self, with lines from others — a cento! Poets and scientists and geologists and historians.

Questions of what makes us us? and what part of us remains throughout our lifetime? and what is the essence of Sara or, who is Sara, on the cellular level? I do think that these are questions that haunt these poems, as the other side of a deep desire for connection. In light of so many connections and how much of me is made up of stuff outside of or before me, what is sturdy and solid and singular about Girl/Sara/me?

I came up with a draft of a poem responding to these questions that I quite like. I’m calling out “43% Girl”

Happy 4th Anniversary

During today’s On This Day practice, I discovered this, from 2021:

Yesterday, I started working on a poem (or a series of poems?) based on my October focus on ghosts and haunting. I’ve decided to use my rhythmic breathing pattern as the form: couplets with 1 three syllable line and 1 two syllable line (3/2)

from log entry dated 6 nov 2021

4 years. That seems like a long time to be working on one collection of poems, and also not that long at all. It started as Haunts, then became Girl Ghost Gorge. Poems all about haunting a place and being haunted by it. Up until recently, the haunting involved a lot of feeling disconnected and isolated. Perhaps because of all of the attention I’ve given the gorge and those feelings, I feel more connected and more girl, less ghost. I should finish this collection and be done with it before I start editing it too much and lose some of its original story.

nov 5/RUN

4.25 miles
marshall loop (to Summit)
47 degrees

What a run! Late fall/November is the best — half leaved, half unleaved. Cooler, more energy in the air. Two things I want to remember more than anything else:

1

Running down the summit hill, nearing the lake street/marshall bridge, a woman ahead of me, walking with another person, wearing the most amazing BRIGHT pinkish orangish jacket. She glowed. As I ran by I called out, I love your bright jacket. She slapped her thigh in delight and called back, It’s my don’t hit me jacket. Then we both laughed.

2

Just cresting the final hill and almost to the ancient boulder, I passed by two women walking and talking and marveling at how beautiful this place is. They both agreed, they hoped they never had to leave it. Then the younger woman, presumably the daughter, said to the older woman (mother): I only want to live here or where you are. That broke me open in the best way possible. I want to make that the title of a poem.

Reflecting on these moments, I imagined turning them into 2 (very brief) acts of a play. Act 1: the bright colored jacket, Act 2: mother and daughter share a moment.

I had a great run. I did the Marshall hill loop. I ran up the whole thing and didn’t stop to walk until I reached the Monument. Then I climbed down a few steps to listen to the shadows fall. After a few minutes, I ran back home — down the summit hill, past the woman in the bright jacket, over the bridge, up the ancient boulder and past the mother and daughter.

added 5 hours later: I just remembered the river and standing on the lake street bridge, peering over the edge and staring into the glitter path. Such bright, sparkling water! I’m not sure I could have stared at it as long and as directly as I did if I didn’t have so many dead cone cells. Bright lights don’t bother me much anymore.

bells

I’m working on the final (I think) poem in my collection. It’s a reworking of my ending poem for the OG haunts. And it’s inspired by some words from Annie Dillard (in “Seeing” from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek) that I’ve fit into my running/breathing form:

My whole life
I’d been 
a bell but
never
knew until
I was
lifted and
struck. Now
I am still
ringing.
—Annie Dillard

Here’s what I wrote in a pages document I’m using to gather some thoughts:

something about becoming a bell, or remembering that I was a bell — vibrating, carrying and passing on the songs — ancient rhythms of grief joy love anger restlessness buried deep within her, knocked loose by this place, by her ghosts, by her never ending movement — everything buzzing, ringing, chiming, pulsing, thrumming, strumming — even the oldest rocks shimmy and shake and shift and settle — her body, an echo, her feet adding to the ruts and the grooves, leaving a trace in foot strikes and words and shadows and, a scattering of Saras all around

For some of my run I thought about bells and Annie Dillard’s quotation about being a bell and Ammons and energy and movement and cells bouncing and shaking and disintegrating and being replaced and movement and — I wish I could remember the rest of what I was thinking, but I can’t.

I do remember one other bell-related thing I thought about. The book closes with Annie Dillard’s bell struck quotation. It begins with some lines from Emily Dickinson and “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” that I fit into my breathing/running form:

As all the
Heavens
were a Bell,
Being
but an Ear

I am both bell and ear. Some substance of the Heavens/the Bell/the Eternal resides within me. And, to be = to notice, to listen

before the run

Yes, to this poem-of-the-day on poets.org and the discovery of a new word (or the remembering of a word long forgotten): vermiculation!

Some Melodious Plot/ Anthony Borruso

The United States government murdered over 12 billion birds over the course of 1959 
threw [sic] 2001. As they killed off the real birds they replaced thim [sic] with surveillance 
drone replicas. Indistinguishable from a biological bird. There are now no real 
birds left. 

—Official Birds Aren’t Real Informational Van Bumper Sticker

i. The Philosophical Ornithologist

It is, as all things are, a problem 
of perspective. What you think

you are watching, watches 
you. Your binoculars convince

themselves they’re quotation marks. 
The spy in the song, the feathered

thoughts, the cold hard data 
you spun into silky fact

that the comment section couldn’t 
wait to run its fingers over.

Of course, the pigeons adapted 
to an urban space—they’re party birds

with smokey plumage, and they grow 
peckish unless they’re bobbing

beaks to Milli Vanilli or waving 
glow sticks around the Sabrett stand.

Ancient Egyptians and Williamsburg 
hipsters have nothing in common

except how their feelings take sharp 
angles in broad daylight when the sun

nests in their beards. What I mean 
is that the bygone is hellbent

on a comeback, i.e., the early bird 
pecks a blog post about the importance

of visually manifesting the worm— 
actually encompassing its wriggle

in your quaint skull before 
taking it to beak. You know though

that we are post-extinction and fully 
flapped out—just look at us,

ogling Mother Nature’s augmentation 
with craned necks, covering every

millimeter of the visible world 
with the vermiculations of a stock

ticker. Something’s wrong. Like, 
real wrong: I knock on mountains

and hear a vast metallic thud. I sleep 
on eiderdown, but can’t seem to

squawk loud enough to stir the other 
Denny’s denizens from their Grand

Slam breakfasts. In Altoona, Pennsylvania 
and Waco, Texas, I can feel my face

being scanned every time I munch 
a Big Mac. On this highway, a pit stop

is a pit stop is a pit stop and overhead 
migration is a chance to grease gears

and re-feather the avian bait-and-switch.

vermiculation: Merriam-Webster entry

1: TORTUOUS, INVOLUTE

2: full of worms : WORM-EATEN

3

a: VERMIFORM (resembling a worm in shape)

b: marked with irregular fine lines or with wavy impressed lines
(line in the feathers of a bird)

cells and spindles

Yesterday I mentioned that a line from Hix’s cell phone reminded me of A.R. Ammons’ garbage. Today, I’m revisiting garbage to find and think about the lines.

Reading through it again, I found this:

we, give rise to to us: we are not, though, though
natural, divorced from higher, finer configurations:

tissues and holograms of energy circulate in
us and seek and find representations of themselves

outside us, so that we can participate in
celebrations high and know reaches of feeling

and sight and thought that penetrate (really
penetrate) far, far beyond these our wet cells,

right on up past our stories, the planets, moons,
and other bodies locally to the other end of

the pole where matter’s forms diffuse and
energy loses all means to express itself except

as spirit, there, oh, yes, in the abiding where
mind but nothing else abides, the eternal,

until it turns itself into another pear or sunfish

These lines stayed with me as I ran today.


oct 31/RUN

5 miles
franklin loop
43 degrees
cold drizzle

This is Halloween. This is Halloween. As I ran, I listened to Apple Music’s Halloween dance mix. A great run. I felt so fast and strong and capable of running hard for long periods of time. And I did — relatively speaking. Faster and longer without stopping than I have in the past year.

10 Things

  1. slick leaves on the path — don’t remember hearing them squeak
  2. running on the east side, near meeker island dam, a large group of kids laughing and playing on the other side. too far to be at a school playground. were they on the white sands beach?
  3. puddles on the franklin bridge
  4. a runner running far ahead of me, then walking, the stopping to sit on a bench — he wore bright blue shorts
  5. bright headlights
  6. the river from the franklin bridge — a view of the trestle and reflections of trees, but no rowers
  7. the river from the lake street bridge — empty pewter river, pale brown sandbar, slight ripples
  8. on the franklin bridge, a small red dot off in the distance, then it turned green — a stoplight
  9. a person with a dog, turning down and entering the meeker dog park
  10. a soft rain, difficult to notice with my hat and tights and sweat

October viewing update

Finished Theater of Blood — so good! Although the second to last death was super gross — let’s just say it involved gluttony and a funnel. And the last “death” — presumably the worst because it was the final one — was more terrible than actually dying; it involved hot knives and blinding the one remaining critic. Sigh — the idea that not being able to see is a fate worse than death, or a living death. Regardless, I really enjoyed the movie.

Also watched John Carpenter’s The Thing. I really liked it — some gross special effects, but a very good movie. Good pacing, good acting, a good premise with haunting questions about trust and how/where enemies lurk.

Current Writing

I’m on a role right now with my writing. I have so many things to work on, that I don’t want to take the time to explaing them right now!

oct 29/RUN

4.5 miles
veterans home in reverse
49 degrees

Another beautiful late fall day. Sun, sparkling river, gushing falls, red and orange and yellow leaves. Parts of the run were easy, parts of it weren’t. Felt tired this late morning/early afternoon. Ran up the hill through Wabun to the veterans home, then over the bridge, past John Stevens’ house and to the falls. The bench above the edge of the world was empty but the Rachel Dow Memorial bench had two people sitting on it. ALL of the kids were outside on the Minnehaha Academy playground as I ran past it on the other side of the road. Two memorable things: 1. a teacher calling out to a student — no, no, we do not climb the fence. get down! and 2. I heard a trumpet playing Reveille. It sounded like a live trumpet and not a recording. Is that what they play to call kids in from recess?

Scott sent me this poem. I’m posting it partly for its cleverness, partly for our shared dislike of licorice, and partly because I love the word It.

It/ Gertrude Sturdle

It is never
what it seems to be
unless it is licorice.
And then
sadly
it is.

the cells, cells, cells, cells, cells, cells, cells

Yesterday I mentioned using Poe’s “The Bells” as a template for my own poem about the cells: dying cone cells, strange rod cells, the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells, a narrowing of space (cell as room, place). I started working yesterday afternoon and am back at it this morning before my run. Fun!

version 1

EA Poe’s original first verse:

Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

My version

Feel the leaving of the cells —
the failed cells.

What a world of loneliness their abandonment foretells.

How they tumble, tumble, tumble,
In the fading of the light.

While the cones start to crumble
,
All the rods seem to rumble
in the loosening of her sight;
Then it’s grays, grays, grays,
and a veil of fuzzy haze.
With an undead half possession and the cast of haunting spells
On the cells, cells, cells, cells,

Cells, cells, cells—
On the slumbering and the stumbling cells.

type of bell: sleigh bells
bells / foretells / wells
merriment / melody

tinkle / oversprinkle / twinkle

a line about the night air
night / delight
time time time
time/rhyme
tintinabulation / musically
bells repeated 7 times
jingling / tinkling — slant rhyme

cells: dead cone cells

cells / foretells / spells

world — loneliness / abandonment
tumble / crumble / rumble
grays grays grays
grays / haze
undead half possession

oct 28/RUN

4.25 miles
the monument and back
49 degrees

Before running I was thinking about bells (see below), so I decided to run over to the Monument and time it so I could hear the bells from St. Thomas. It worked! Just as I crested the Summit hill: bells! 3 rounds of chiming, which means it was 11:45. Ran to the port-a-potty in the parking lot (yep, a little unfinished business — oh well), then over to above Shadow Falls. Hiked down into the ravine and listened to water falling although I didn’t get close enough to see it so, who knows, maybe I was hearing shadows falling instead? Wow wow wow! That ravine! So wide and open and glowing a pale yellowy green. Amazing! After a few minutes of marveling, I hiked back up and started running again, just as the bells were chiming for noon.

All around, it was peak color. Butter yellow, marigold yellow, cherry red, crimson, orange. Leaves on the trees, leaves on the ground. Did I see any leaves flying in the air? I don’t think so. I did see some turkeys! Almost a dozen grazing in the grassy stretch at the bottom of the hill in the middle of the road. When I returned 20 or 30 minutes later, the turkeys had crossed the road and were blocking the path.

Stopped on the bridge at the overlook to check out the bright colors on the shore and the sandbar just below the water. There were small scales on the water and the reflection of the bridge railing in the water was flickering.

added the next morning: I just remembered the albino squirrel! After exiting the port-a-potty, heading back to the Monument, there it was at edge of the bushes: an albino squirrel.

before the run

During my On This Day practice, reading through my 28 october 2021 entry, I was reminded of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Bells,” and returned to an obsession, something that haunts Girl Ghost Gorge: the bells, bells, bells. In the earliest versions of GGG, when it was called Haunts, the bells commenced and concluded the collection. The vibrations of the bells, ringing like a bell, the soft echo, the fading away, but not really fading away of the sound of bells. Had to stop for a minute to find out what Scott was listening to in the next room. I heard bells and wondered, is that coming from him, or am I hearing wind chimes outside? It was him. I exclaimed, “I am literally writing about bells right now!” and in a Owen Wilson voice, playfully mocking me, he said, “Wow.” Back to the bells — just when I thought I was done with this collection and ready to submit it to the Two Sylvia’s women poets over 50 contest, I must write about the bells. The St. Thomas bells, the bells in poetry, bell as echo, slant rhyme, the image of a stuck bell, ringing, vibrating, as similar to my constantly moving buzzing central vision.

aside: some years ago — was it before or after the pandemic? — I gathered together bell words and ideas and thoughts and made a page for my How to Be project. Not long after I finished, Scott gave me some bad news: something happened to our wordpress sites and anything posted in the last week was lost forever. No! I had written so many things in that time, including my page about the bells. Some of it I remember, some of it is lost.

Here are the original references to bells in my first and last Haunt poems from 2021:

opening

Listen to 
bells on 

the other 
side ring

out sound that
spreads from 

hard center
to soft

edge

close

Echoes.

Bells bounce off
boulders,

bridges, time,
singing

familiar
tunes from

the other
shore. We

are not those
 bells but

their excess,
reverb,

sounds after
the sound

that surround.
Buzzing

persisting
trying

to pass on
songs of

joy love grief
anger

that began
before

we were here,
before

we believed
we were

all there was,
before

we were ghosts.

Hmmm….I really like how I begin and end with the bells, as if signaling a ceremony. And, this collection, is a ceremony! Or, at least, it has a ceremony as part of it. Listening to the bells as a way to prepare yourself for the poem — the one made up of words, the one made up of the family of things at the gorge, the one shaped out of a life from the wearing down of stone and the flow of water.

after the run

Walking home after finishing my run I had a thought: using Poe’s “The Bells” as a starting point, write a chanting poem about the cells, cells, cells — cone and rod cells, the cancer cells that killed my mom. Faulty cells, drying up cells, dying cells, the narrowing of a world (cell as small, confined space), uncontrolled growth (cancer, late-stage capitalism).

What an amazing morning/noon! I felt strong and relaxed and grateful to live near this place and have strong lungs and legs and the discipline to return here again and again.

oct 23/RUN

3.5 miles
locks and dam no. 1*
49 degrees

*ran south to the locks and dam no. 1, then halfway down the hill and over to another hill that climbs up beside the underbelly of the ford bridge and to the bluff and wabun park. Turned around and headed down to the bottom of the locks, then back up it again.

Ran in the late afternoon. The gorge has very different energy in the almost evening. Cars rushing to get home, kids walking home from school, the light longer, lower. Noticed some amazing golden-avocado-orange leaves on a tall tree and some small bright red leaves on a low bush. Twice I ran past a bush/mini-tree with green leaves that yelled out to me, BLUE! What? I stopped the second time to figure out how I was seeing/hearing blue, but couldn’t.

Geese! I haven’t seen as many geese this year. Today, half a dozen of them were floating in the water under the ford bridge. I don’t think I heard them, but I saw one of them spread their wings wide and then flap them furiously.

Turkeys! Running above the winchell trail between the 44th and 42nd street ravines, I saw them across the parkway. 4 or 5 big turkeys rooting through the grass. At least one car slowed way down to witness their awesomeness for a minute.

Anything else? Oh — I heard music coming from a bike speaker. Just the opening chords — I’m 90% sure it was “Just What I Needed” by The Cars. Excellent!

I felt strong and fast and bouncy. Wore the yellow shoes, which were mostly great, although they did hurt my feet a little.

For most of the day, I’ve been working on a poem that is less about form and more about the process of creating it — almost 9 full years of noticing and writing about what I noticed in this RUN! log AND sitting down today and recounting those things from memory. The poem is 2 pages wide. In the upper left corner, loosely representing a gorge wall, are the words, She goes to/the gorge/to notice, and in the bottom right corner, every/thing. The rest of the page is filled with what I have noticed, written across the page with the noticed things separated by slashes. It’s fun! I am about three quarters of the way finished with the first draft. I imagine I’ll want to tweak it a little. The last thing I added before leaving for my run: port-a-potty, clean / port-a-potty, dirty / port-a-potty, tipped / port-a-potty removed to discourage encampments below. Will I keep these? Not sure.

oct 22/RUN

3.1 miles
2 trails
44 degrees

Blustery, cool, full of color. Reds and oranges and yellows. Everything wet from yesterday’s rain. The winchell trail was covered in leaves, some wet, some dry, most of them rusty red. I greeted a guy I passed with a good morning, then realized it wasn’t morning, but afternoon. Oops. He said morning back. I wonder if he realized the mistake. Thanked several other walkers for moving over to let me pass. Heard some kids yelling at the playground and one guy yell out to someone else, that’s Ben. Ben is here. A woman stood at the top of the old stone steps, studying something below. Was she deciding whether or not to take them down? Wondering what was down there, or whether or not the steps were too slick?

Every so often, I thought about a line that I haven’t quite found a home for in GGG: Each loop adds substance, tightens the tether, but never enough to stop the looping.

Began chanting: looping and/looping and/looping again

After I finished running, as I walked back, I had 2 ideas for fun experiments with the lines.

first: switch up the order of the words — mimicking of swirling water falling from a limestone ledge? or, take part of it and create an anagram?

second: do a variation on the golden shovel form by taking the tether/never/looping sentence and ending each line of a new poem with the words from it, in order, so that it spells out the sentence. Or, to mimic the rock walls of the gorge, start each line of the new poem with the first half of the sentence, then end each line with the second half. Too contrived? Future Sara will let me know.

Found a wonderfully wandering poem this morning, “Reading Virginia Woolf in a Women in Literature Class at Bergen Community College.” It’s long, so I’ll just an excerpt:

excerpt from Reading Virginia Woolf in a Women in Literature Class at Bergen Community College/ Carlie Hoffman

when my sister asked if I’d ever
kissed anyone. I was just beginning
freshman year, working to get my time
down for swim team where I’d spent summer
ditching birthdays & the ice cream
truck’s persuasive tune to practice
the butterfly & freestyle & learning to dive
less crooked, which was going as well
as expected until Andrew
sat next to me on the bus
ride home from the pool during tryouts,
his chlorine-dried hand on my shoulder
a little too long without asking when he asked
my name & he has a crush on you
said my friend Becca while faking
a gagging sound in her throat. I said yes
even though I hadn’t kissed anyone & maybe
this was my first true poem, lying
to my sister in support of love, stealing imagery
from the books I’d read in the library
to avoid the cafeteria

I love her definition of a poem: lying to someone in support of love, stealing imagery from other poets

Richard Siken!!

I love Richard Siken’s new book that I picked up from Moon Palace Books Monday night. Read this poem while Scott was rehearsing with the community jazz band:

The List/ Richard Siken

I tried to say something nice to the nurse. I introduced myself. She said we had already met. I thought she was moody until I realized she was several nurses, each working their own shift. To them I was Hamlet in a long line of Hamlets. My problems were unimpressive and not unique. I had a grief counselor, like everyone, and a suicide counselor, because I had said the wrong thing. I wrote in my notebook. I made a list, a working glossary. My handwriting was big and crooked. Meat. Blood. Floor. Thunder. I tried to understand what these things were and how I was related to them. Doorknob. Cardboard. Thermostat. Agriculture. I understood North but I struggled with left. Describing the world was easier than finding a place in it. The suicide counselor said the people who hadn’t shown up weren’t going to show up, that the ones that had stopped coming would not be coming back. She had seen it before, she saw it every day. The person they knew was gone. To them, I had broken the contract: I had left first and they were already grieving. I started a second notebook, for venom and hard feelings—things that would leak into the list if I let them. It was harsh and ugly. It was true and harsh and ugly and it made me feel sick. What do I know? What do I know for sure? I built up meaning with a double set of books. —A doorknob is a rock for the hand. It opens a hole in the wall. —A doorknob is your stupid head. You will not survive this.

I remember reading the line, Describing the world was easier than finding a place in it, as part of “About this Poem” explanation of “Real Estate.” I loved the line so much I turned it into a form fitter — my name for the lines that I shaped into my breathing rhythm of 3/2 syllables. I always thought it belonged in a poem, and here it is. Wow!

Describing 
worlds is

easier 
than find

ing your place 
in them

OR

Describing
worlds is

easy. Find
ing your

place in them
is hard.