5 miles john stevens house and back 36 degrees humidity: 87%
We are at peak, or just past peak, color here at the gorge. Wow! So beautiful that it’s hard to take it all in. How wonderful it is to live here and experience this every day! Running to the river, I heard a loud noise. A bell? No, the horn from a train. Was a train rumbling over the trestle? Ran south on the river road and received at least 2, maybe 3, “good mornings” or “morning” from other runners. Very nice. The sky is gray, but in one small corner of the sky, I could see the sun almost peeking through. Heard and saw some geese flying high in the sky. The falls were gushing a bit more than the last time I ran to the falls. Ran up the steps, over the creek, along the bluff, and around the John Stevens House. Encountered a woman running with 2 dogs. One of the dogs lunged at me, which didn’t bother me, and I could hear her yelling, “No! We don’t do that!” at it after I passed. Anything else? No turkeys. A roller skier. Oh–an older woman who stopped at the edge of the paved path to call out to someone from the city working on the sewer across the road, “thank you!” The worker was confused and called back, “Sorry?” “Thank you!” Don’t think I’ve ever seen (or heard) that before.
As I was running through minnehaha regional park, I thought about the things that have stayed the same, the things that have changed, and what seems to still be present as living and vital, and what only remains in decay, or in the faintest traces of what it had been. I was thinking about this as I ran by the playground, which was redone five or so years ago, but still has some old equipment, like the creaky, rusty swings. Something about that reminded me of a few lines from Poe’s “The Bells,” especially the bit about the rust.
Hear the tolling of the bells— Iron bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! In the silence of the night, How we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone! For every sound that floats From the rust within their throats Is a groan.
monody: an ode in a greek tragedy; a poem lamenting a person’s death
“the rust within their throats” — love that line and how it speaks to decay and sorrow and, almost, the living dead
Decided to run the ford loop this morning and stop at some of the overlooks. Is today one of the last beautiful fall days? Possibly. So much yellow and red everywhere. Leaves drifting down like fat, fluffy flakes. Sun lighting up the surface of the river. Amazing. Writing this, an hour later, the sky is dark. Rain coming. I’m glad I got outside this morning.
10 Things I Noticed
Running above the river, over the lake street bridge: the water looks a deep, dark blue
From the edge of the bluff, on the east side at one of my favorite spots, the river looks lighter, richer, still blue
Heading north, a strong-ish wind in my face
Running beside Shadow Falls, wondering if what I was hearing was water from the falls or the wind in the trees or both
Passing a group of pedestrians, walking 2 by 2 on the edge of the trail
A barking, lunging dog, barely held back by a human also pushing a stroller
The view, 1: from just below an overlook on the St. Paul side, standing on a rock, close to the edge. The bank on the west side of the river is mostly yellow and red, with a few bits of green still holding on. Looking left or right, all I could see were water, shore, trees, rock
The view, 2: from the ford bridge. Mostly brown tree trunks and green/red/yellow leaves. Then, a break. A gleaming white — is this the limestone cave where the trail ends? The spot where STA and I watched the rowers a few weeks ago?
The view, 3: from the overlook at the southern start of the Winchell Trail. The glittering, white heat of water lit by the sun. One way, the ford bridge. The other, trees
Running on the Winchell Trail, right before 42nd, the trails curves close to the edge. As you climb, it looks like you might just keep going, out into the sky, above the river
Before I ran, I studied a passage from U A Fanthorpe’s “Seven Types of Shadow,” especially the lines:
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
In particular, I was thinking a lot about echoes and reverberations. Halfway up the Summit Hill, I started thinking about bells and the reverberations of sound they emit after being struck. These thoughts were partly inspired by a passage I read from Annie Dillard in “Seeing” from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:
Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. The flood of fire abated, but I’m still spending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells unflamed and disappeared. I was still ringing. I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.
Seeing/ Annie Dillard
I didn’t want to forget my thoughts, so I pulled out my phone, mid-run, and recorded myself. It was challenge, speaking while running and trying not to feel self-conscious as I passed other people:
Recording While Running / 20 Oct
Here’s a transcript of what I said. I turned it into a poem, using my breaths to break the lines. I’d like to try doing this some more — experiment with recording my thoughts mid-run, then using my breaths to shape the poem.
I’m thinking about how I’m a bell and how we’re all bells and when we are struck — is it at birth or is it like Annie Dillard: there’s a moment of awareness and clarity that makes our bell ring reverberate continue to echo?
added a few hours later: I forgot about how, just before I started recording my thoughts, I heard the bells of St. Thomas. Was it 10 am? or 9:45? Not sure, but it seemed fitting to hear these bells, which I often hear at my house too, as I was thinking about bells.
I thought about a lot of things on today’s wonderful run. Decided I’d like to make a list of the traces, trails, reverberations I encounter on my runs. Also decided to look up and listen to the Radiolab episode about echolocation. And I decided to think/research more about the presence of the WPA at the gorge. As I thought about this I wondered about my grandfather who lived in St. Paul and worked for the WPA. Was he a part of the gorge work — making benches, walls, steps? Shoring up ravines, minnehaha and hidden falls? He’s been dead for almost 30 years now, so I can’t ask him. A further set of questions I pondered as I ran past the steps leading down from the 44th street parking lot: Do I need to know the exact truth about his involvement with the WPA? Or, is it enough to know he was a part of it, and okay to imagine he might have helped build the old stone walls I run by, the benches I want to stop at but never do?
In between admiring the view and thinking about echoes, I recited the first part of the 7th section of May Swenson’s “October” in my head. Such a great part of a poem! I’m a big fan of May Swenson’s work.
Looked it up and found the echolocation episode. It’s from Invisibilia and not Radiolab: How to Become Batman
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.
II.
Hear the mellow wedding bells, Golden bells! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight! From the molten-golden notes, And all in tune, What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon! Oh, from out the sounding cells, What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells! How it dwells On the Future! how it tells Of the rapture that impels To the swinging and the ringing Of the bells, bells, bells, Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells— To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
III.
Hear the loud alarum bells— Brazen bells! What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! In the startled ear of night How they scream out their affright! Too much horrified to speak, They can only shriek, shriek, Out of tune, In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire, Leaping higher, higher, higher, With a desperate desire, And a resolute endeavor Now—now to sit or never, By the side of the pale-faced moon. Oh, the bells, bells, bells! What a tale their terror tells Of Despair! How they clang, and clash, and roar! What a horror they outpour On the bosom of the palpitating air! Yet the ear it fully knows, By the twanging, And the clanging, How the danger ebbs and flows; Yet the ear distinctly tells, In the jangling, And the wrangling. How the danger sinks and swells, By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells— Of the bells— Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells— In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
IV.
Hear the tolling of the bells— Iron bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! In the silence of the night, How we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone! For every sound that floats From the rust within their throats Is a groan. And the people—ah, the people— They that dwell up in the steeple, All alone, And who tolling, tolling, tolling, In that muffled monotone, Feel a glory in so rolling On the human heart a stone— They are neither man nor woman— They are neither brute nor human— They are Ghouls: And their king it is who tolls; And he rolls, rolls, rolls, Rolls A pæan from the bells! And his merry bosom swells With the pæan of the bells! And he dances, and he yells; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the pæan of the bells— Of the bells: Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the throbbing of the bells— Of the bells, bells, bells— To the sobbing of the bells; Keeping time, time, time, As he knells, knells, knells, In a happy Runic rhyme, To the rolling of the bells— Of the bells, bells, bells— To the tolling of the bells, Of the bells, bells, bells, bells— Bells, bells, bells— To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
Another nice run. Another beautiful fall morning. Glowing yellow. Sunny, not too much wind, not too warm. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker twice. Ran past Daddy long legs. Noticed a roller skier. Encountered a clueless human and a small yippy dog, both taking up the very wide path on the franklin bridge, forcing an impatient biker to ring their bell and swerve around them. Some stones were stacked on the ancient boulder, the river was blue then, later, brown. No rowers (although STA and I saw them last night, rowing fast). The trees below the tunnel of trees were almost all gold. Soon: a view!
(The other day, I found a brochure online for the Winchell Trail. Reading through it again, I thought it was where I read about the plaque on a boulder about Newton Horace Winchell that was near the Franklin Bridge, but it’s not.) Having read about a plaque for Winchell somewhere near Franklin, I decided to look for it. When I couldn’t find it above the gorge, I turned and ran up the hill to the Franklin Bridge. There it was, the plaque! I’d never noticed it before.
Running on the east side of the river, between Franklin and the trestle, I thought I heard footsteps behind me, but when I looked back no one was there. I thought again about how ghosts and haunting involves more than visions and apparitions; it can come in the form of strange sounds, echoes, disembodied voices. Footsteps behind you or the rushing of wind past your ears or rustling leaves, amplified in the dry, deadness of fall. These sounds are both strange — hard to place, easy to confuse with other sounds, like beeping trucks that could be chirping birds, crying kids that sound like shrieking bluejays — and familiar. They conjure up memories, invoke the past.
A few days ago, I discovered Annie Dillard’s chapter in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: Seeing. I have read some (all?) of this book years ago, but I didn’t remember there was a chapter titled “Seeing”! Excellent. I read it online, from a pdf. Yesterday, I found my copy, which isn’t really my copy but my dead mom’s copy that I inherited or, more likely, borrowed years before she died in 2009, on the bookshelf next to my desk. I opened it up and discovered a wonderful surprise: a sticker in the front that reads, “This book is the treasured possession of Judy Puotinen.” My mom has signed her name so neatly and clearly. I could stare for a long time at the pretty loops of her J and y; the confident backward slant of her P, almost looking like a person puffing out their chest; the t that looms larger than the other letters and stands like a cross (she was not very religious, or as she might have put it, “I’m spiritual, not religious”); and the errant dot of an i, charging ahead to dot the n instead. This signature, too, is a trace, a haunting, more than a memory. It is her, still speaking 12 years after she died. Such a powerful voice in that signature! For a few years after her death, I would encounter her signature on a box in the basement of my first house in Minneapolis. I had a lot of these boxes; they were care packages she sent almost once a month: a new tablecloth, a candle, a cookbook, baby clothes for my kids. It was difficult to see that signature then. It reminded me of how much I had lost: not just her but the care and love she constantly gave me and would have given to my kids. But now, to stumble across her in this way is wonderful. To spend time with her, delighting in remembering how much she loved books and how carefully and beautifully she wrote her name.
It waits now for snows to fall upward, into a summer whose green leaves vanish, but back into branch, into sap, into rain.
It waits for the old to grow young, fed and unfearful, for freighters to carry their hold-held oil back into unfractured ground, for fires to return their shoeboxes of photos and risen homes.
It unbuilds the power line’s towers before the switch can be toggled, puts the child, rock still in hand, back into his bed.
A single gesture of erasure pours back into trucks and then river the concrete wall, unrivets the derrick, replenishes whale stocks and corals.
And why not—it is easy—restore the lost nurse herds of mammoths to grazing, the hatched pterodactyl to flight? Let each drowned and mud-silted ammonite once again swim?
One by one unspoken, greed’s syllables, grievance’s insult. One by one unsewn, each insignia’s dividing stitch. One by one unimagined, unmanufactured: the bullet, the knife, the colors, the concept.
Reversal commands: undo this directional grammar of subject and object. Reversal commands: unlearn the alphabet of bludgeon and blindness. Reversal commands: revise, rephrase, reconsider.
And the ink, malleable, obedient, does what is asked.
3.6 miles minnehaha falls and back 41 degrees humidity: 87%
Another cooler, wonderful morning. Wore running tights + running shorts + bright yellow long-sleeved shirt + bright orange sweatshirt + buff. It was humid, so even with the cool air, I was sweating. Starting my run, heading into the sun, I could see the moisture in the air. Hovering. Ran south on the path and noticed the river burning through the trees. Such a cool sight. The falls were falling, not quite a gush, but more water than the last time I was here. Encountered a roller skier, a few bikes, lots of walkers, a runner or two, dogs. Watched the back end of a squirrel darting back into the bushes as I approached.
As I ran back north, after the falls, I tried looking up higher so that more of peripheral vision was seeing the path. Last night, watching the 4th Harry Potter movie, I started looking at it through my periphery and was amazed at how much more I could see. I aimed my eyes off the side of the television and the images weren’t sharp and clear, but I could see more of them. Colors were more intense too. Strange–and a strange way to watch a movie, looking off at the wall.
Ending my run, crossing over to the grass between the river road and edmund, I watched my shadow ahead of me and thought about shadows and ghosts and how my shadow sometimes leads me, sometimes follows. Then I thought about the dirt trail I was walking on and wondered how long it had been there. And I thought about how it was formed where it was and not somewhere else on the wide expanse of grass. How many feet (or wheels) were needed to establish this trail as the unofficial path to take when walking or running on this grass? I also briefly thought about the Oregon Trail and how, when we were visiting Scott’s Bluff in Nebraska, you could still see and walk that trail, over 150 years later. Earlier this morning, I had also thought about trails, imagining them as a collaborative poem that walkers/runners offer to the gorge with their feet.
At some point on the path, I also thought about Robert Frost’s classic path poem—maybe it was right after I recited his, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”?
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
I found an essay about this poem that I’d like to spend more time with, maybe later today or tomorrow?:
Winter running is coming! Today was great. Cool enough to not get (too) overheated, sunny, not much wind. More yellow leaves. Right after I reached the river road, I heard 2 runners behind me. One of them had a booming voice that carried. I couldn’t tell how far behind me they were or if they were slowly approaching me. Instead of getting irritated or changing my pace, going faster or slower, I kept it steady and heard a few fragments of the conversation, mostly the loud guy’s part: they haven’t seen each other since the pandemic hit, so they were catching up, talking about their running and injuries and aging. I recall the quiet guy saying something like, Man, it’s tough getting old. Not too far from lake street, the quiet guy left. The last thing I heard before I turned up to the lake street bridge was the loud guy blowing a snot rocket (so glad he was far behind me!).
10 Things I Noticed
The river, part 1: crossing the lake street bridge. Out of the corner of my right eye, barely below the railing, I kept thinking I was seeing a rower. Not the shell, but the wake or trail of the boat gliding through the water
The river, part 2: crossing back later, I realized it had not been a rower or the trail from a boat but something else — the current, ripples from a something just below the water, scum on the surface?
The floor below the Welcoming Oaks was covered in a dead leaf carpet. No visible grass or dirt, just crunching leaves
Still no stones stacked on the ancient boulder
Near the bottom of the marshall hill looking up at the red stop light at the top, seeming far and close at the same time
Hearing voices as I ran above Shadow Falls on the St. Paul side — were they coming from the falls or The Monument?
The women runners I encountered wearing pants or tights; the male runners shorts
The huge empty lot near Summit on the St. Paul side that I’ve seen on zillow. Asking price: 2.75 million just for the land
Right before greeting Dave, the Daily Walker, I heard a bike that had just passed brake loudly — not a squeal but a loud compression of air, or sneakers rubbing on a gym floor– then turning around and passing me again
The river, part 3: Running south on the west river road, nearing the old stone steps, I glimpsed the river, on fire from the sun, burning bright white through a break in the trees
Something about seeing the river burning white made me think more about ghosts and traces and why I am interested in trails and flashes. Right after I finished my run, I recorded my thoughts. In this recording, I can’t remember what prompted these thoughts and I say lake when I mean river.Also, I keep intending to use notes on my phone when dictating my ideas because it can transcribe them. One day, I’ll remember.
after run / 16 october
Speaking of traces, here’s something I encountered on twitter this morning:
“I am slow and need to think about things a long time, need to hold onto the trace on paper. Thinking is adventure. Does adventure need to be speedy? Perhaps revising is a way of refusing closure?…”
Rosemarie Waldrop
Just got Rita Dove’s latest collection, Playlist for the Apocalypse, from the library. I love Rita Dove! Here’s one that doesn’t necessarily fit with this month’s theme, but I want to post it anyway:
Island/ Rita Dove
A room in one’s head is for thinking outside of the box, though the box is still there—cosmic cage, Barnum’s biggest, proudest Ring. My land: a chair, four sticks with a board laid across: This is the raft I pile my dreams on, set out to sea. Look for me, shore.
3.5 miles trestle turn around + extra 49 degrees 19 mph gusts
Brrrr. Colder and windier today. Wore tights and 2 shirts. The leaves continue to change. Today: bright brassy yellow with hints of green and brown. Not mustard or gold — at least to me. So intense and delightful that I exclaimed “wow!” as I reached the edge of the welcoming oaks. Down in the tunnel of trees more oranges and yellows. Still more leaves in the trees than on the ground, but if the wind keeps blowing like it did yesterday and it is today, that will change. By next week, will all the leaves have fallen? I felt strong and relaxed, running at an easy pace. Then a runner slowly approached from behind, not passing me fast enough, running alongside of me. I sped up to avoid them and knew it was a mistake almost immediately. I was running too fast. Ran for a few more minutes at that pace and then stopped to let the other runner pass. The lesson to learn: always slow down or stop to let another runner go by. Do not speed up to avoid them. This is a reminder of a lesson I should have learned several months ago with the group of kids on bikes under the lake street bridge (see may 28, 2021).
10 Things I Noticed
A bright orange tree on the grass between edmund and the river road. Difficult to quite remember, but I think it wasn’t completely orange, maybe giving the idea of orange or orange-tinted leaves on an otherwise green leafed tree
The man in black who was not in black at all but still has the very long legs. I think I might rename him “daddy long legs” — is that bad?
The trees above the ravine and the slick slats and sewer pipe and concrete ledge were bright yellow and red
The wind was blowing in many different directions, never at my back
The jingling of my house key in the small zippered pocket in the front of my orange running shirt
A roller skier without his poles — no clicking or clacking, lots of awkward arm movements
No stones stacked on the ancient boulder
Hardly any leaves left on the welcoming oaks
An approaching runner avoiding me by running on the other side of a tree and through the grass
3 sets of steps (all inviting me to take them): the old, uneven stone steps after the tunnel of trees; the big stone slabbed steps before the trestle; the recently replaced wooden steps after the trestle. All leading to the Winchell Trail
Ran north listening to the wind, south listening to a playlist with Miley Cyrus and 2 songs by Silk Sonic — nice! At the end, above the ravine, I thought about how I rely less on a watch, and much more on the weather and the trees to keep track of time. Much more enjoyable to think in seasons or the progress of the leaves than minutes, hours, days.
Earlier today I was thinking about pace — and only slightly in relation to running pace, more about pacing and restlessness and ghosts that haunt the path. Pace and pacing, like watches or clocks, impose limits and boundaries: a running pace uses seconds and minutes per mile (or km) and pacing involves walking back and forth in a small or confined space, retracing your steps again and again until you rub the grass away and reach dirt, or wear the carpet bare. What to do with that information? I’m not quite sure…yet.
I found this poem on twitter yesterday. Even though it doesn’t deal with my theme (ghosts, haunting, haunts), I wanted to post it and tag it with water so I would have it for letter. Such a wonderful poem and poet!
Rebuked, she turned and ran uphill to the barn. Anger, the inner arsonist, held a match to her brain. She observed her life: against her will it survived the unwavering flame.
The barn was empty of animals. Only a swallow tilted near the beams, and bats hung from the rafters the roof sagged between.
Her breath became steady where, years past, the farmer cooled the big tin amphoræ of milk. The stone trough was still filled with water: she watched it and received its calm.
So it is when we retreat in anger: we think we burn alone and there is no balm. Then water enters, though it makes no sound.
favorite bits: anger, the inner arsonist; the bats and the rafters the roof sagged between; the line break for “the stone trough was still/filled with water”; and water as the soundless balm for our burning alone.
random sighting/thought: Saw a sign in front of a house that read:
We love our rocks! Please do not take our rocks.
I thought about the importance of line breaks here. Maybe it’s just my faulty vision, but when I read this sign I am just as (or maybe more) likely to read the line “take our rocks” on its own and think they want me to take their rocks. How does the meaning of the sign change with different breaks:
Please do not take our rocks.
Please do not take our rocks.
Please do not take our rocks.
What if you mix up the order?
Our rocks do not take please
Our rocks do please take not
rocks? please. ours do not take
do ours not please? (rock’s take)
take rocks — ours please — (do not)
Too much useless fun!
addendum: I told STA about my fun wordplay, and he offered this one:
Our rocks please. Do not take!
another addendum: The sign actually started: Rocks rock!
4 miles minnehaha falls and back 59 degrees humidity: 78%
Overcast today. No sun. I like how this makes the colors — the reds, golds, greens — glow more. Almost peak color in the trees. When I started my run, I felt awkward, almost like my limbs were working against instead of with each other. By the time I reached the river it was fine. Ran south to the falls on the trail, which I’ve been trying to avoid, and it was crowded. 4 roller skiers, skiing 2 x 2 were causing all sorts of problems for bikers and me as I encountered the bikers. Made it to the falls, stopped to check out the statue of Minnehaha and Hiawatha. Hardly any water in the creek. Ran north, heading home. Took the Winchell Trail and admired the leaves — their intense colors and the fact that many of them had already fallen. My view is coming back!
10 Things I Noticed
The slow approaching clicking and clacking of ski poles. Click clack click clack
A squirrel emerging from the trees then darting back in as I neared
The lights from a bike coming closer, a sharp contrast with the gray gloom
The trickle of the sewer pipe near 42nd. Drip drip drip
Many leaves on the ground. In some spots erasing the trail
2 spindly, bare branches poking out from behind a golden tree, reaching up to the sky
A clicking or rattling noise coming from some animal, probably a squirrel. Sounding a little like the rattle of a rattlesnake
The falls barely falling. Hardly any water
Kids laughing, yelling, talking at playgrounds — Minnehaha Academy and Minnehaha Falls. More kids playing tag around the fountain and the benches with parts of “Song of Hiawatha” etched on them
Winchell Trail in full color — a perfect fall scene (can this perfection last for more than a day?)
As I ran, I was thinking more about the act of haunting (frequenting) a place, returning to it and then about trails and how I might want to write more route/trail/loop poems that play with ideas of haunting. At the end of my run, I recorded some of my thoughts. Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about trails and frequenting and haunting. And then I was thinking as I was running over the leaves, how the trails are hidden, can’t see the cracks or the trail at all. But then, when the leaves are gone and the snow starts to fall, when it’s just barely flurrying and there’s just a dusting on the ground, it illuminates the trails. You can only see that when the leaves are off and it’s just a dusting of snow. Thinking about how I want to play with that as part of this tracing. And also thinking about the different ways I can see — the visible and not visible. When is it a matter of seeing and when is it a matter of feeling? And thinking about the type of seeing I can do with the peripheral, which detects movement and gives you a larger sense of the terrain. What does that mean for these well-worn trails and how I experience them?
This is a country of ghosts. Down the eastern shore Lie the drowned villages, drowned luggers, drowned sailors.
After a hot summer, fields grow talkative. Wheat speaks in crop marks, grasses in parch marks.
Wheat or grass, what they tell is the truth Of things that lay underneath five thousand years ago,
The forts, the barrows, the barns, the shrines, the walls. These are the native ghosts. After a hot summer.
No haunting. No rattle of chains. They just lie there In their rigid truthfulness, the ghosts of things.
Part iv
We carry our human ghosts around with us. As we grow we face the mirrors, and see
The spectre of a great-aunt, a vague look Known only from sepia snapshots. The hands we’re used to –
Yes, these – their contours came by way of a long retinue Of dust. We are photofits of the past,
And the future eyes us sideways as we eye ourselves. We are the ghosts of great-aunts and grand-nephews.
We are ghosts of what is dead and not yet born.
Part vi
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,
Voices calling I’ve passed / We won / QED / It didn’t hurt much, Mum / They’ve given me the job / I have decided to name this apple Bramley;
And the women convicts singing their Holloway march, While Ethel Smyth conducts from her cell with a toothbrush.
Part vii
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,
Ghosts of the singers, the dancers, the liberated, Holding hands and cheering in parks, while the tanks Squat immobilized. Ghosts of the women on the fish quay Hugging each other when at last the boats come in.
Ghosts of the last night of the Proms. And ghosts of lovers, Wandering round London, so happy that they could Have danced danced danced all night.
Like this bit: “And the future eyes us sideways as we eye ourselves. We are the ghosts of great-aunts and grand-nephews./ We are ghosts of what is dead and not yet born.” Love this way of messing with linear time. On a smaller scale, I think about this with past, present, and future Saras.
Still a little warm, but fall is here. Another great morning — sunny and cooler than last week. I wore shorts and a long sleeve shirt (my bright yellow 10 mile race shirt from a few years ago). For the first few minutes, I was chilly, but I warmed up quickly. I wouldn’t mind running in this weather every day. Frequently counted to 4. Sometimes felt strong, sometimes tired.
10 Things I Noticed
The Welcoming Oaks have lost most of their golden leaves
The tunnel of trees and my favorite spot above the floodplain forest is slowly turning yellow. Still lots of green and no view of the river yet
The new asphalt, put down only last year, near the trestle is cracking already. In addition to the long cracks, people have spray-painted a peace sign, an anarchy sign, and something else that looks like squiggly lines to me
Running over the franklin bridge, thought I saw a rower on the river, but the railing blocked my view. Every time I turned back, I could almost see it, believed it was there, but could never fully see it. Finally, almost across the bridge, I looked back and there it was: a single shell
The river was mostly a pale blue with the dark edges — the result of trees on the shore casting their shadows into the water like fishermen
A dog barking below
No stones stacked on the ancient boulder
Another regular: the guy with big headphones on who I used to see on the track at the Y. Last week I saw him near the east side of the trestle, today it was below the lake st bridge on the marshall side
Running back over the lake st bridge, I admired the rowers on the river. 6 rowers. 2 single shells and 2 doubles
An older man running on the other side of the bridge, shirtless
My shadow was running in front of me for part of the time. I thought about her as a ghost, or me as a ghost, then about all of the running or walking feet that have landed on this path. I thought about other people — the ones still alive who frequent the trail, like me, and the ones who are dead. I wondered about the old woman whose death, caused by a speeding bike in the 70s, resulted in separate biking and running trails on the west side of the river. Where was she struck? I looked it up, and the only thing I had correct: a woman was struck and killed by a bike and the outrage over her death led to the creation of separate bike trails. BUT, it was not on the river road, but at Lake Harriet, and she wasn’t old, but 58. (Source) I thought about all of the past Saras that have run this trail too. How many of us are there?
4 miles wabun park + turkey hollow 65 degrees humidity: 86% / dewpoint: 61
A little too sticky, but what a beautiful morning for a run! Sunny, calm, quiet. Before running felt uneasy about something I couldn’t name; running helped. I’m thinking about ghosts and haunting the path (frequenting it, floating above it, flashing through it) and trying to find a way into my next big project — my annual fall project. Something about the periphery and the approximate as not quite (human, able to see or connect, in this world, real). I need a door, or at least a window — anything that might let me enter this project.
10 Things I Noticed
The trail, covered in leaves, a lot of them red — not bright red, but faded, almost pink
A processional of walkers, bikers, big groups of runners on the trail between 36th and 42nd
A clanging collar on the other side of the boulevard, following me as I ran south
Someone playing frisbee golf at Wabun, throwing a frisbee from the path. Were they playing or working, picking up frisbees others had left behind? Why were they throwing from the path? Why did it look — in my quick, unreliable, glance — that they had a golf bag?
For over a year and a half, every time I run up 47th, as part of the turkey hollow loop, there is a dumpster parked on the street, in front of a house. It was still there today. Have they been remodeling their house for that long?
The ford bridge, from the top of the hill at wabun, then from below, at the bottom of the path
My shadow in the grass as I walked across turkey hollow
The too white, newly redone road between 42nd and folwell, one side of it covered in leaves
Feeling someone running at my same pace–me on edmund, them on the river road. Not wanting to look over to check too closely, trying not to race them
The dirt trail between Becketwood and Minneahaha Academy Lower Campus, dry, covered with leaves, much more worn and well-traveled (haunted) than the barely there mostly tamped down grass, partly dirt path in front of Minnehaha Academy Upper Campus
Because there are so few hobbies left to the dead, my father gives himself this: his usual route, the Queens-bound F to Continental, where he walks with the living to work. Every day he finds a new occupation— picks trash off the tracks, changes a dirty lightbulb, makes rounds on the platforms, tries to make some small use of his hands, though no one notices or acknowledges. Yet still he returns every day, in his tan shirt and brown slacks ironed with the impatience of the perpetually late, his keys jingling carelessly in his left front pocket.
Twenty-plus years with the MTA but some other guy’s got the job now, someone younger, maybe someone my father knows, standing in the operating booth at the end of the platform, watching the miniature trains on the board carry lights through a digital New York. And maybe the young man knows nothing of the dead man, has no words for a ghost who builds a home of his absence. And if my father says haunt
he doesn’t mean the way rooms forget him once he’s gone; he’s saying his leather chair now in his coworker’s office, his locker in the back room newly purged of its clutter, or his usual table in the break room where he sits at 10:30 each night eating the same steak club and chips, counting the 10, 20, 30 more years till retirement, cuz he’s close, he’s in the final stretch—any day now and he’ll finally go on that vacation.
31 degrees
clear path!
mississippi river road, south/minnehaha falls/north
The temperature may be below freezing but it still feels like spring. The water at the falls was gushing. The path was clear. The sun was shining. The elementary school kids were outside, gleefully shouting. Thought about my mom while I was running and looking over to St. Paul. Is this one of the reasons I like to have an obstructed view to the other side of the river? To see St. Paul, the city where my mom was born and raised (technically, she lived in West St. Paul, but close enough)? Running back towards the end of my run, I saw the shadow of a small bird flying behind me. It seemed strange and I wondered, how often do I see the shadows of birds? Not often, I think.* I tried to keep my run steady and slow and my pulse low. It worked. A good run. Now, a good day.
*update, 13 may 2024: This year, I’ve given a lot of attention to the shadows of birds. I’ve even been writing poems about them!