Tag: headphones

jan 20/RUN

4.3 miles
minnehaha falls and back
10 degrees
100% snow-covered

What a wonderful day for a run! Hardly any wind. The feels like temperature is the same as the actual temperature. The path isn’t too slippery or sloppy or soft. The sun is shining, the sky is bright blue, the path isn’t crowded.

Reached the river and turned right today. Briefly glanced at the oak savanna. Looked at the open water on the river. Noticed a big hulking mound of snow near a bench. A mutated snowman? Not sure. Listened to my feet crunching on the path, scratching more than usual because of my yaktrax.

The falls are mostly frozen with only a small stream of water still falling. A handful of people came to look, most up above by me, some down below, exploring the ice columns in the off-limits area. Heard the creek still moving–not quite rushing–towards the edge.

Heading back, I put in my headphones and listened to a playlist. Admired my shadow as she led me home. Looked up and saw a big bird or a plane–can’t remember which now–in the sky. Heard some geese.

Anything else? This run made me happy. I smiled a lot at the passing cars and the snow-covered trees. Also, I stopped at the double bridge and walked in the deeper snow of the walking path. Looked down at the ravine, then at the snow on the path which was so bright and white that it seemed blue.

Smells and Poetry, a few recent and one not so recent encounters

1. Pungency

Of course, I don’t want my children to have exactly the same childhood as I did: that would almost be a definition of conservatism. But I would like them to be assaulted by the pungency, by the vivid strength and strangeness of detail, as I was as a child; and I want them to notice and remember. (I’m also aware that worrying about lack of pungency is a peculiarly middle-class, Western affliction; much of the world is full of people suffering from a surfeit of bloody pungency.) from The Nearest Thing to Life/ James Wood

2. The Smell of a Thought

one thing i love about poetry is how thinking and feeling don’t need to be distinguished. a thought that is a strange passion, yes. a feeling that is a philosophical argument, yes. and both physical, sensory too. the taste of a feeling. the smell of a thought. a tweet from @chenchenwrites

3. Smells and Memory, an Exercise

Jot down some smells that are appealing to you. For each one, describe the memory or experience associated with that smell, making sure you bring in the other sense in your description. Write a poem for each smell. Do the same with smells you don’t like. from The Poetry Companion/ Kim Addonizio

4. Smelling the Entrails of a Failed Soul

What Nietzsche writes about bad air in On the Genealogy of Morals: “What is it exactly that I find so totally unbearable? Something which I cannot deal with on my own, which makes me choke and feel faint? Bad air! Bad air! It’s when something which has failed comes close to me, when I have to smell the entrails of a failed soul!”

jan 19/RUN

4 miles
trestle turn around + extra
5 degrees/feels like -8
100% snow-covered

A winter wonderland. Cold, but not too cold–at least not for me. Fluffy flurries in the air. The path was covered with snow but it was packed and not too slippery. Just before starting my run, I listened to the snow, grinding as my foot stepped down and shushing as it lifted off of the ground. Not too long after I started, I saw 2–yes 2!–cross country skiers about to head down into the tunnel of trees. Nice. Had a few brief glances at the river but was focused more on avoiding big snow clumps/ice chunks on the path. Encountered some walkers, dogs, at least one fat tire, a few other runners. Was able to greet the Daily Walker twice, once heading north, and again heading south. Didn’t hear any geese today. Saw lots of cars. While running the cold didn’t bother me after the first mile. When I stopped my skin started to burn. Not sure why, but the part of me that gets the coldest after a run is my stomach. Not my arms or fingers or toes. It burns and for several minutes it’s bright red. Why?

Looked it up, and here’s what I found:

When you exercise, the working muscles call for an increase in blood flow. Oxygen is essential to energy production and blood supplies it. … During running your body is not focusing on digestion, urination or reproduction, so blood is diverted from the stomach area, which may be cause for a cold stomach while running.

Interesting and nothing to worry about. Later in the article it states, “This is no cause for concern. If your stomach is cold, your body is doing it’s job.” Good job body!

Right now I’m reading the awesome book, Why Poetry by Matthew Zapruder. Love this description of poetry:

Poems exist to create a space for the possibilities of language as material. That is what distinguishes them from all other forms of writing. Poems allow language its inherent provisionality, uncertainty, and slippages. They also give space for its physicality–the way it sounds, looks, feels in the mouth–to itself make meaning (12).

Wow, this poem! I love Marie Howe.

Singularity/ Marie Howe

   (after Stephen Hawking)

Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity
we once were?

so compact nobody
needed a bed, or food or money—

nobody hiding in the school bathroom
or home alone

pulling open the drawer
where the pills are kept.

For every atom belonging to me as good
Belongs to you.   Remember?
There was no   Nature.    No
 them.   No tests
to determine if the elephant
grieves her calf    or if

the coral reef feels pain.    Trashed
oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;

would that we could wake up   to what we were
— when we were ocean    and before that
to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was
liquid and stars were space and space was not

at all — nothing

before we came to believe humans were so important
before this awful loneliness.

Can molecules recall it?
what once was?    before anything happened?

No I, no We, no one. No was
No verb      no noun
only a tiny tiny dot brimming with

is is is is is

All   everything   home

jan 17/RUN

5.5 miles
Annie Young Meadows turn around
10 degrees/ feels like -4
30% snow-covered

A big snowstorm (9-12 inches) is moving in this afternoon, so I wanted to get out on the mostly clear path before it was covered in snow again. Cold today, lots of layers: 2 pairs of running tights, 2 pairs of socks, green shirt, pink jacket, gray jacket, 2 pairs of gloves, a hood, a hat, a buff. Maybe if I had fancier high-tech tights I could get away with less layers, but I guess I’m cheap. Figured out before I headed out on my run that one pair of tights and the green shirt are at least 6 1/2 years old. It is time to get some new ones–I think it’s not that I’m cheap, but that I don’t like shopping or spending money.

aside: Sitting at my desk upstairs, looking out the window, I just saw the big white dog and his human walk by. I mentioned this dog a few weeks ago and how they mimic the walk of their human. It used to be an exaggerated shuffle. Today the human was pushing a walker with the dog ahead of him. Hunched over the walker, his back was almost horizontal. Sad that he has so much trouble walking these days but great that he’s still getting outside. That is my goal. To walk outside until I absolutely can’t.

The path by the welcoming oaks was in bad shape, so was the stretch around 29th. The rest of it was better. So wonderful to be running on bare pavement out in the fresh air! Heard some geese flying near the trestle. Low in the sky. Decided to run down the Franklin Hill so I could check out the water. Slushy and icy and thick. Running north, it looked still, but when I stopped at Annie Young Meadows Park, I realized it was moving slowly towards the falls. I watched the chunks of ice travel beside me as I started running south. Not many people out today–less than a handful of walkers and runners. One fat tire.

Almost forgot! A few days ago, I saw a cross country skier skiing in the boulevard between Edmund and the West River Parkway. Nice!

Sprinted up the final hill–the one that’s on the path above the tunnel of trees. Guess this is my new end of run ritual. I always wonder what the cars think of me as I try to speed up the hill. Do I look fast? Strange? Do they question why I’m out here in the cold? I also try not to imagine one of these cars, slipping on hidden ice, driving up one curb and crashing into me. Has that ever happened to anyone on this stretch?

This morning, scrolling through twitter, I found a link to this cool poetry walk which is on an amazing looking site: Trance Poetics: A collaborative site for language&healing arts to counter the apopocyplitic energies that are contaminating the physical and psychic field of language. I want to try this walk–should I try it as a run?

Kristin Prevallet’s Poetry Walk (a modified version of original walk by Lundy Martin)

This is a 45 minute exploratory walk. Spend 45 minutes walking, and return to this spot where you began. Please do this exercise ALONE! Write short passages or sentences for each instruction, spending a maximum of 5 minutes in one place. First thought, best thought. 

1.   Walk outside for in a random direction to an area that appeals to you. Stop and sit down. Write a sentence that describes where you are and how you got there.

2. Write an invocation to someone/something you miss terribly. (Begin your line with an Ode: Oh, _____).

Walk to another location. When you have arrived, sit down.

3. Close your eyes and listen. Write what you are hearing that you didn’t notice before.

4.  Describe a memory of your childhood using details from an architectural structure that is visible from where you sit.

Turn around and face the opposite direction.

5.  Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).

Walk somewhere else. Sit down.

6. Write a sentence in which you contradict something you wrote earlier. 

Face another direction. 

7. Pull out your phone and write down the last text message that you received. Write what you really want to say to this person. 

8.  Write a sentence in which an emotion springs into action as in: “the frustration cleaned the house” or “the depression switched off the lights.”

9.  Study another’s body movements/gestures from a distance. Mention at least two of these gestures.

Walk for 5 minutes.

10. Write a sentence beginning with the phrase, “I remember.”

Walk to another location. Stop.

11.    Imagine yourself at a time in the not to distant future, feeling the way you want to feel and living the life you want to be leading. Write into this future tense, as if what you are writing is a prediction.

12.     Write a consoling phrase from a language other than English.

13.     Mention something about the weather without making it known you are talking about the weather.

Spin around. Sit down.

15.     Close your eyes. Breathe out for a count of 6, and in for a count of 3. Do that four times. Write: What’s everything that you are not thinking about? 

16.     Make a nonhuman object say or do something to someone who injured you as a child.

17. Make up an instruction and insert it here. 

18.   Give this piece a title that comes from one of the lines you have written so far.

jan 15/RUN

run 1: 2.5 miles
river road, south/north
21 degrees
50% snow-covered

Such a beautiful morning for a run! Not too cold or too windy. A few flurries in the air. I’m planning to go to stadium running tonight with Scott, but I couldn’t resist getting out by the gorge this morning. It’s supposed to be ridiculously cold tomorrow morning and then lots of snow on Friday. I need to enjoy the clear path while I can. Running south today, I was able to admire the oak savanna from above. Don’t remember the trees, just the bare white stretching out. Oh–and the sound of a kid laughing and an empty stroller parked at the top of the trail that leads down into the savanna. Looked down at the river and noticed the variation in color–a pale blue then brown. Realized the blue was a thin layer of ice, the brown open water. Is that right? I’m pretty sure, but I debated it for a minute in my head. I was too far away and moving too fast to be sure. Admired the beautiful curve of the retaining wall above the ravine near the 44th street parking lot. Thought about trying out a bit of the Winchell Trail but wimped out. Too much snow. Heard groups of kids out on the playgrounds of the 2 schools I passed, out for recess.

run 2: 3.25 miles
us bank stadium

Ran at the stadium with Scott. Again, not together, but at the same time and in the same place. Encountered a wonderful human in the elevator on the way upstairs. Long white hair, a ice skating/ roller skating skirt, cool rollerblades, a mustache maybe? Scott said he’s seen them roller blading by the river a lot in green tights. Not sure if I have. They got off the elevator before us, planning to roller blade instead of run. My younger self would have loved to roller blade (or roller skate) there. In 4th grade, way back in 1984, I was the roller skating queen of Salem, VA (at least in my own head). Went to the rink as many Saturdays as I could.

They were playing much better music today–“rock and roll ain’t noise pollution” RUSH, the Police–but I still ran with my headphones. Made sure to look down at the field, which was being prepared for an upcoming monster truck rally, and out the window at downtown. Realized why I hadn’t looked out these windows on Monday. It’s at the narrowest part of the route and I was too busy paying attention to not running into carts or other runners.

Not sure what the floor of the concourse is made of–concrete?–but it’s harder on the legs. The first mile felt awkward as I tried to adjust to the increased pounding my calves were experiencing.

Yesterday, I was skimming through Theodore Roethke’s book on poetry and craft and found these:

To day there’s no time for the
mistakes of a long and slow
development: dazzle or die.

Dazzle or die.

Are there dangers? Of course.
There are dangers every time I
open my mouth, hence at
times when I keep it shut, I try
to teach by grunts, sighs,
shrugs.

jan 14/RUN

3.2 miles
trestle turn around
27 degrees
100% slushy loose snow-covered

It snowed a few inches on Sunday, a few more last night. Not enough to plow but enough to cause problems on the path. Wore my yak trax and that helped. Except for the bad stretch between the lake street bridge and the trestle. It’s always windy and the path is always covered. Nearing the trestle, my legs felt really tired from all of the sliding around I was doing. I stopped to take a break and put my headphones in. This seems to be a trend: running one way with no headphones, the other with them in. Not sure if I like this habit. It’s harder to listen to the gorge with headphones in.

the daily delight

Just after I reached the river, running on the bike path near the road, I heard a shimmering shaking sound as the wind blew roughly through some dead leaves on the trees closer to the gorge. It was my friends, the Welcoming Oaks! I imagined that they were calling out to me, “Hi friend, we miss you. When will you run on the walking path near us again?”

a strange image

With a quick glance down, the river looked like a brown wall to me. Flat and vertical instead of horizontal. So strange. Looking again, for longer, it stopped being a wall.

the daily walker

Perhaps the biggest reason I take note of and remember the Daily Walker is that he is always by the gorge walking. No matter what the weather. Usually wearing 2 long sleeved shirts and no coat. Rarely a hat. Since I started writing in this log, I’ve seen him almost every time I’ve ran. I admire his consistency and aspire to be him in a few decades. But there is another reason I take note of him: his gait. I’m not sure what happened to him–maybe he had a stroke?–but his arm swing–I think his left arm–is very exaggerated. It swings out wide. This swinging motion is how I can see that it is him. Without it, I’m not sure I would remember him. Even after passing him hundreds of times. I hardly ever remember faces anymore because I can’t see them clearly. I rely on other features–hair, clothes, how a body moves. As I near someone on the path, I always look for the tell-tale swing and I know it is him. Today he was there and we greeted each other.

A few days ago, I watched the short documentary, Notes on Blindness. Wow! Discovered that it’s been turned into a longer documentary and that it’s on Netflix. Cool. I’ll need to watch that soon. At some point in the film while discussing how we can’t see or remember his wife’s or kids’ faces, Hull asks,

To what extent is the loss of the image of the face tied up with the loss of the image of the self and with the consequent feeling of being a ghost or a mere spirit?

I can still see the outline of faces and haven’t lost my memory of ones important to me, but this idea of losing a sense of the self–at least a self beside other selves–because I can’t see faces, resonates for me. When I don’t recognize family members’ and friends’ faces, I feel less human, more spectral.

jan 12/RUN

4.2 miles
to the falls and back
17 degrees/ feels like 5
25% ice and snow covered

Reached the river and turned right instead of left and headed to the falls. Today the river was blue. Grayish blue. Steel blue. Maybe Copenhagen blue? I can’t trust my color sense these days. Sometimes bright pink looks yellow or green looks gold. Regardless of what color you would call it, I’ll stick with steel blue. Beautiful. A few less ice floes down here, south of the lake street bridge. The path was stained a chalky white, the hard frozen snow brown. Sometimes it was difficult to see what was clear and what was not.

The falls were wonderful. Reaching the far end of the park, by the benches and fountain with Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha” etched on them, I heard the dim roar of the falls still flowing. Rounding the corner, the roar suddenly became louder. I stopped at the stone edge for a minute and marveled at the frozen columns of ice and the water falling beside them. Put it my headphones, turned around, and ran home. Felt strong and happy to be outside on a clear path.

Did Rise/ Jessica Rae Bergamino

Did tear along. 
Did carry the sour heave 
of memory. Did fold my body 
upon the pillow’s curve, 
did teach myself to pray. 
Did pray. Did sleep. Did choir 
an echo to swell through time. 
Did pocket watch, did compass. 
Did whisper a girl from the silence 
of ghost. Did travel on the folded map 
to the roaring inside. Did see myself 
smaller, at least, stranger, 
where the hinge of losing had not yet 
become loss. Did vein, did hollow 
in light, did hold my own chapped hand. 
Did hair, did makeup, did press 
the pigment on my broken lip. 
Did stutter. Did slur. Did shush 
my open mouth, the empty glove. 
Did grace, did dare, did learn the way 
forgiveness is the heaviest thing to bare. 
Did grieve. Did grief. Did check the weather, 
choose the sweater, did patch the jeans 
worn out along the seam. Did purchase, 
did pressure, did put the safety on the scissors. 
Did shuttle myself away, did haunt, did swallow 
a tongue of sweat formed on the belly 
of a day-old glass. Did ice, did block, 
did measure the doing. Did carry. 
Did return. Did slumber, did speak. 
Did wash blood from the bitten nail, 
the thumb that bruised. Did wash 
the dirt-stained face, the dirt-stained 
sheets. Did take the pills. Did not 
take the pills. Cut the knots 
from my own matted hair.

Love the repetition of this poem and the relentless “did” only stopped on the second to last line. Love the telling of a story and the expressing of feelings through the mundane listing of what she did.

jan 11/ RUN

4 miles
trestle turn around + extra
10 degrees/ feels like 0
40% ice-covered

Brr. Colder today than it has been for a while. I was fine with lots of layers. For most of the run, there were big strips of bare pavement. They were stained white from the salt or sand of whatever it was that they put down a few days ago and I kept thinking it was snow or ice instead of bare pavement. Greeted Dave the Daily Walker and a few other runners. Noticed the river and loved how arctic it looked. Bigger ice floes and thick water that seemed stuck.

The thing I remember most about the run was near the end, heading south, when the wind was not quite gently rushing through the trees and I heard a shimmering sound as the wind rustled the dead leaves. This felt strange and out of season, more like a noise I would hear in the summer or fall, and I imagined that it was much warmer outside. Almost tricked myself.

HIPPOPOTOMONSTROSESQUIPPEDALIOPHOBIA/ Aimee Nezhukumatathil

—The fear of long words

On the first day of classes, I secretly beg

my students Don’t be afraid of me. I know

my last name on your semester schedule

is chopped off or probably misspelled—

or both. I can’t help it. I know the panic

of too many consonants rubbed up

against each other, no room for vowels

to fan some air into the room of a box

marked Instructor. You want something

to startle you? Try tapping the ball

of roots of a potted tomato plant

into your cupped hand one spring, only

to find a small black toad who kicks

and blinks his cold eye at you,

the sun, a gnat. Be afraid of the x-rays

for your teeth or lung. Pray for no

dark spots. You may have

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis:

coal lung. Be afraid of money spiders tiptoeing

across your face while you sleep on a sweet, fat couch.

But don’t be afraid of me, my last name, what language

I speak or what accent dulls itself on my molars.

I will tell jokes, help you see the gleam

of the beak of a mohawked cockatiel. I will

lecture on luminescent sweeps of ocean, full of tiny

dinoflagellates oozing green light when disturbed.

I promise dark gatherings of toadfish and comical shrimp

just when you think you are alone, hoping to stay somehow afloat.

I love Aimee Nezhukumatathil. She is one of my favorite poets. And I love this poem and how it enabled me to learn a new word: hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. Very useful. But how cruel to make the term for a fear of big words such a monstrous, imposing word!

jan 9/RUN

5 miles
franklin hill turn around
29 degrees/ feels like 20
50% ice and snow-covered

Love these outdoor runs when the path is not completely ice-covered and I get to run for almost an hour! Just past the welcoming oaks stopped for a minute to let the parks mini-truck drive by on the path. Noticed later that they had put some dirt down on the path. Hooray! Hopefully that will make it easier to run on. For much of the run north, felt like I was in a dream, floating along on the path.

What I remember about today? The River

Wasn’t sure how long I would run but decided to go all the way to the bottom of the Franklin hill to get a closer look at the river and all the ice on it. So desolate and other-worldly looking! Studded with chunks of ice and thick water that wasn’t moving or barely moving. Moving at a glacial pace? Thought about this phrase and how (sadly, disturbingly) it’s losing its potency as a metaphor now that glaciers are melting (and melting so much faster than expected).

Did a quick google search and found this article: Slang is changing at a glacial pace

The thick water reminded me of simple syrup–clear but thick and barely flowing. Or maybe like a partly melted slushie? Still very cold and a little frozen but more liquid than ice. I’ll have to keep looking closer at the river to see when/if it completely freezes over.

After turning around at the bottom of the Franklin hill, I ran back up the hill, stopping at 3 miles for a minute to turn on a playlist. Encountered several dogs and their humans, some walking, some running. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker. After I finished running, stopped at the split rail fence above the ravine to stretch. With the temperature almost at freezing, the water dripping out of the sewer pipe smelled rotten.

dead metaphors

Yesterday I posted something about metaphors, their (sometimes) entrenched political meanings, and how they can limit instead of expand our imagination. Today, I’m thinking about metaphors again as I read the “Slang is Changing” article I mentioned above.

During the Little Ice Age, which stretched from the 14th to the 19th century, the median Northern Hemisphere winter was significantly colder than it is today. Glaciers more often advanced than retreated, sometimes wiping out communities as they moved. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem ‘Mont Blanc’ (1817) captures the menacing aura that adhered to those frozen rivers of ice:

… The glaciers creep
Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains,
Slow rolling on …
in scorn of mortal power

Shelley saw glaciers as predatory, immortal forces, eternal beings, before whose might mere humans quaked. But global warming has flipped that perception. We are now more likely to view glaciers as casualties of humanity’s outsize, planet-altering powers.

In “Politics and the English Language” (1946), Orwell laid out six rules for writers, the first of which declares: “Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.” An inert metaphor such as “hotbed of radicalism” conveys very little: We can no longer feel the blazing temperature between the bed sheets, just as—prior to public awareness of global warming—we’d stopped noticing the icy fossil poetry in “glacial pace.”

We speak routinely of carbon footprints, of wiping species off the face of the Earth, and of greenhouse gases, but we no longer see the feet, the hands, and the backyard sheds. As consciousness of climate change has grown, a new class of dead metaphors has entered the English language. We speak routinely of carbon footprints, of wiping species off the face of the Earth, and of greenhouse gases, but we no longer see the feet, the hands, the faces and the backyard sheds that were once vivid when those phrases were newly coined.

jan 6/RUN

3.25 miles
trestle turn around
27 degrees
50% slick ice-covered

Ugh! The temperature was great, so was the wind, but the path was terrible. So slippery–not all of it, but enough to make it very difficult to run on. I’ve been wondering why the paths are so awful this year and I think it is because they must not be treating the asphalt at all. Not sure what they used to put on it, but nothing this year. This is a bummer, but I’m sure whatever they were treating it with was not good for the river so I’m glad they’ve stopped.

Paused at the trestle to put in my headphones and admire the beautiful, brown river. Very peaceful today. Don’t remember much else except for the walk before the run: I heard lots of birds, an airplane, the hum of far off traffic, a chainsaw trimming a tree. Oh–and how the slick ice on the path was shining in the sun.

The Spider/ Heather Christle

The spider he is confused
b/c I am not killing him
only moving him outdoors
When I die I do not want
to feel confused
No I would rather feel clarity
like I am a pool
and death a chlorine tablet
I want it to feel
not like I am dying
but am being transferred
to the outside
And I hope I do not drown
as I have seen happen
to hundreds of spiders
b/c I love to swim
and to drown would
wreck swimming
for a long time
But death is like none of this
I know that death is a tower
standing in the middle of the town
And the tower receives
many visits
And there’s no one
but spiders inside

Heather Christle is wonderful. Favorite line: “I hope I do not drown/as I have seen happen/ to hundreds of spiders/ b/c I love to swim/and to drown would/wreck swimming/ for a long time”

This poem is part of a series called Back Draft in which poets show two versions of a poem and then discuss their revision process. Very interesting.

on revision

With me, I can pretty quickly hear whether there is a thing that is alive inside the poem. But for me, if that thing that’s alive in some poems isn’t there, there’s nothing I can do to make it come forward, you know? Some poems have life, and some just don’t. Sometimes it’s an ostrich, and sometimes it’s a cinder block, and no matter what I do I can’t make a cinder block be an ostrich (Heather Christle)

the process of writing poetry

an enormous part of what I’m doing is listening, that I’m listening to the strangeness that is within us, and within our world, and within our ways of speaking to one another. And I’m listening to the energies and desires of the words themselves, which isn’t to say that I think that I’m actually listening to Martians, to borrow Jack Spicer’s metaphor, you know? I don’t think that I’m catching the voices of ghosts or something. I don’t know what is on the other side of what I’m listening to, but I do know that it, for me, has to be heard right away, that I can’t slowly revise my way towards it. If I missed it the first time, it’s not going to become present.

jan 4/ RUN

2.5 miles
river road, south/north
28 degrees
90% sharp, crusty snow and ice

Should have worn my yaktrax today. So slick and uneven. What a bummer. The river was open and beautiful, the sun glowing through the gray gloom, the air not too cold. But the path was terrible–too rough and uneven and dangerous.

Walking earlier this morning with the dog, my left kneecap couldn’t find its groove. It wasn’t completely sliding out, but it was rubbing. Not sure why, but running helps it get back into place. Oh, the body is such a strange thing.

Encountered lots of runners. A few bikers. Some walkers. No Daily Walker. Turned around at the double-bridge parking lot and put on a playlist. Started with my new favorite song: Black Wizard Wave by Nur-d. I would have been flying down the path if it hadn’t been so icy.

Still playing around with my favorite lines of poetry from all the poems I gathered in 2019. So much fun.

Cento/ Sara Lynne Puotinen

VI.

I’m sorry for the rabbits.
And I’m sorry for us
To know this.
Suffice it to say I am sorry all the time.

VII.

All that trees can ever learn they know now
clear cut and certain, they rise, telling me
Go forth to the forests and grow wise
and who among us could ignore such odd
and precise counsel?

VIII.

Meanwhile, even the birds sing
to-do lists and quietly
the doe does what does do.

VIX.

for no reason
the windowed ones in their windowed world
lock the door

jan 3/RUN

3.75 miles
up on the ford bridge and back
33 degrees
75% snow-iced covered

Took Delia the dog out for a walk and was worried that it would be too slippery but it was so calm and warmish and wonderful that I couldn’t resist trying. Wore my yaktrax and struggled for the first few minutes on the sidewalk. Turned right instead of left and headed towards the falls. There was a strip of clear path almost the entire way. The river was beautiful. Ran south to the ford bridge and decided to climb up the short hill and run across it. What a view of the river! And what noisy traffic zooming by!

Observations

  1. Even though the sky was whiteish gray (or grayish white), it was bright enough for the river to be reflecting the bluff on the st. paul side. Looking down at the water, I saw the white from the bluff and some trees.
  2. Looking down at the Winchell Trail near 42nd street, I could see the graceful curve of the retaining wall above a ravine.
  3. Saw–or maybe sensed?–2 birds flying above me. One was black, most likely a crow. The other, white–probably a seagull? I like this idea of distinguishing between seeing and sensing. I do a lot of sensing–but how to describe that?

Disclosure/ Camisha L. Jones

I’m sorry, could you repeat that. I’m hard of hearing.
To the cashier 
To the receptionist 
To the insistent man asking directions on the street 

I’m sorry, I’m hard of hearing. Could you repeat that?
At the business meeting 
In the writing workshop 
On the phone to make a doctor’s appointment 

I’m-sorry-I’m-sorry-I’m-so-sorry-I’m-hard-for-the-hearing

Repeat. 

           Repeat. 

Hello, my name is Sorry
To full rooms of strangers 
I’m hard to hear 

I vomit apologies everywhere 
They fly on bat wings 
towards whatever sound beckons 

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry
           and repeating
                       and not hearing

Dear (again) 
I regret to inform you 

I       am

here

I love this poem and how the author communicates her frustrations with being hard of hearing. I love how she twists it a little by writing hard-for-the-hearing. And I love her reading of it, which you can listen to on the site. I want to spend some more time with this poem and think about how to translate it into my experiences being hard of seeing.

jan 2/RUN

5 miles
franklin hill turn around
36 degrees
95% snow-covered

Oh, I needed this run! Started out rough, walking to the river, slipping on the sidewalk. The path was covered in slick, unsettled snow. But somewhere after the lake street bridge something happened and I started to feel that joy of being outside and breathing in the cold air and feeling my muscles working. Was it around the time I noticed the river? Not white, but brownish gray, free of ice and snow. Or after I passed the unleashed dog and its human near the trestle? While I was running down the franklin hill, my arms swinging rhythmically? Or after I turned on my running playlist as I started running up the hill? Now I remember. It was when ACDC’s Back in Black came on and I picked up the pace between franklin and the trestle. Today I got to fly and it was amazing.

Listened to the Current yesterday for their end of the year/decade (or as Mark Wheat liked to pronounce it: duhCade) wrap-up and discovered Nur-D and “Black Wizard Wave.” Favorite lines: “I’m currently feeling myself” and “I’m so high. Levio Levio Leviosa”

This is the first poem I read in 2020. I found it yesterday morning while scrolling through twitter. Beautiful.

Abstract/ Todd Dillard

A hummingbird has died in my driveway.
My neighbor, mowing his lawn, glimpsed it falling,

and now he holds the body careful as a soap bubble
in the chalice of his broad hands. The summer 

this year is sending our street hate mail: FUCK YOUs and
I HOPE YOU DIEs written in sidewalk worms and mosquito bites,

every shirt darkened by Pangaea damp, every kiss salt
lick and dog pant. And it’s ridiculous, really, how no one

has researched why every body gets smaller when held,
how a pocket-sized grief can become a particular tininess: lost

picture, forgotten phone number, memory of an old coworker
who would sing as he mopped the bookstore café, his tenor

rolling through air like rainwater down subway stairs. We hang,
my neighbor and I, suspended in June’s sewer breath,

inventing the kind of time travel where our minds age
backward, turning us into children again, asking:

What should we do? What happens next? Our dead
mothers call from porch steps—dinner’s ready, come

eat these decades while they’re still fresh! And then—
pop—we’re our old selves again, we head to our houses,

him to toss the bird into his garbage bin, then maybe do the dishes,
me to get dinner started, to stand before the open fridge

and wonder what it is I am hungry for
listening to the hum of its engine.

Favorite lines right now: we hang,/ my neighbor and I, suspended in June’s sewer breath,/ and Our dead/mothers call from porch steps

This poem was published in the journal, BOOTH. I looked at their submission policy and found these scary statistics:

  • Our acceptance rate is typically around 1% or lower.
  • From September to March, we typically receive around 3,500 submissions, or between 15-20 per day.

Wow. I imagine this is pretty typical for most journals. I’m glad I don’t write poetry to get published.

dec 31/RUN

3 miles
trestle turn around
20 degrees/ feels like 10
100% loose snow

It snowed all day yesterday and even though they plowed it once, there was still a lot of loose powder on the path. Not fun to run in this stuff. Still, I enjoyed it. Watched my shadow as she helpfully showed me how my running form looked. Again, I forgot to look at the river. I did see some other walkers and runners and a kid and adult sledding down a hill on the other side. Also encountered a plow which wasn’t actually plowing but just speeding down the path. Heard my feet crunching sharply on the path as the spikes from my yaktrax met the crusty snow on the edge.

Stranger by Night/ David Hirsch

After I lost
my peripheral vision
I started getting sideswiped
by pedestrians cutting
in front of me
almost randomly
like memories
I couldn’t see coming
as I left the building
at twilight
or stepped gingerly
off the curb
or even just crossed
the wet pavement
to the stairs descending
precipitously
into the subway station
and I apologized
to every one
of those strangers
jostling me
in a world that had grown
stranger by night

I feel lucky to have stumbled upon this poem by a poet I like very much on a subject that is very important to me. I have the opposite problem with my vision–my central vision is going while my peripheral will always be there. I see people but their edges are fuzzy (and so are their faces). It’s hard sometimes to see where they end and I begin. This becomes especially overwhelming in crowded places, like the Mall of America which I hate going to but often do to please my daughter. I like the gorge because there are more trees and rocks than people and when I can’t see them or bump into them, I don’t have to apologize.

Rereading this poem a few times, I love how it is all one sentence. I also love how he describes his experience with vision. I’d like to try writing a poem like this one about my own vision problems. He seems to have found an effective way to communicate the strange scariness of it without being too heavy-handed with emotion, which seems hard to do. Sometimes I feel angry or overwhelmed by my inability to see and others’ inability to make more room for people like me.

dec 30/RUN

3.25 miles
trestle turn around
34 degrees/ snow
15 mph wind/ gusts up to 29 mph
100% snow-covered

Happy Winter Running! Even running straight into the wind and the snow didn’t dull my delight for being outside in the wintery white world. Wow! (too much with the rhyme and alliteration?) These days I don’t mind so much about the wind or the snow as long as the path isn’t too rough and uneven. Today I wore my yaktrax and had no problems running on the snow. There were a lot more people out there than I would have expected. I thought I was the only crazy one who goes out in this. Was it because of the holidays? Was able to say good morning to Dave the Daily Walker at the end of my run–I haven’t seen him in a while. I do not remember looking at the river even once–now I do remember looking down at the river when I got to the trestle but I absolutely don’t remember what I saw.

Observations (or thoughts?)

  1. The snow was wet and heavy and made pock-marks on the sidewalk.
  2. The sharp, wet flakes flew straight at my face coating my vest, turning the black material from dull to slick and shiny.
  3. For a few stretches, I pulled the brim of my baseball cap down as far as it could go to block my face from the sharp, prickly snow. I looked down at my feet and imagined the path in front of me.
  4. The path was covered in footprints and a single track–probably from a bike wheel.
  5. With the snow, I couldn’t see where the path ended and the grass began but I could feel it when my foot stepped off. Softer on the grass and springier too.
  6. Heard but didn’t see geese honking overhead as I ran south. I imagined what it would feel like to be flying so high in the icy wet sky, honking with wild abandon.
  7. Running by, I noticed two people standing at the top of the old stone steps. How long did they stay there? Did the climb over the chain and take the steps down to the river? If they did, who/what did they find?

Before heading out for my run, I listened to a Poetry Off the Shelf podcast episode with Matthew Zapruder. In it, he talks about nothingness (which is also a chapter in his book, Why Poetry):

One way I think about nothing is silence and absence. And I think that poems—people want to talk a lot about the difference between poems and song lyrics. You know, are song lyrics poetry, and I think the lyrics in song take place against the information of music. And they’re in dialogue with that information. But poems are in dialogue with silence. And silence and nothingness and absence are so fundamental to the physical experience of writing and reading poems for me. But nothingness also has a conceptual importance for me as a poet, which is that, you know, language—I mean, even the kind of talking that you and I are doing now—it’s so purpose driven. We want to accomplish things with our language and communicate and exchange. And that’s a beautiful thing, and that’s what language—you know, it’s a miraculous tool in that way. But what happens if you remove all that purpose and functionality from language? If you take it away and there’s a kind of absence or nothingness in your purpose of speaking, what then starts to happen? And I think what happens is poems. Because then language has a chance to move around and be intuitive and make connections and reach for the limits of experience in a way that it can’t do when you’re constantly turning it to a purpose.

I really like thinking about language not having a purpose and about a poem giving language the chance to breathe and move around and not be driven by any one aim.

Erstwhile Harbinger Auspices 
BY MATTHEW ZAPRUDER

Erstwhile means long time gone.
A harbinger is sent before to help,
and also a sign of things
to come. Like this blue
stapler I bought at Staples.
Did you know in ancient Rome
priests called augurs studied
the future by carefully watching
whether birds were flying
together or alone, making what
honking or beeping noises
in what directions? It was called
the auspices. The air
was thus a huge announcement.
Today it’s completely
transparent, a vase. Inside it
flowers flower. Thus
a little death scent. I have
no master but always wonder,
what is making my master sad?
Maybe I do not know him.
This morning I made extra coffee
for the beloved and covered
the cup with a saucer. Skeleton
I thought, and stay
very still, whatever it was
will soon pass by and be gone.

I have loved the word harbinger ever since I first encountered it in a vocabulary book in a high school english class. I love how this poem makes me wonder why a blue stapler from Staples is a sign of things to come. I love the idea of air being an announcement and that people called augers studied the honks of birds to determine the future. I love when a word can be both a thing and the action that thing does–flowers flower. And I love that it will take me many readings to begin to make sense of this poem.

dec 29/RUN

5.4 miles
franklin loop
42! degrees/ 98% humidity
0% snow-covered/ 40-50% puddle-covered

A wonderful run on a wet, almost raining day! Wasn’t planning to do the franklin loop but then decided at the last minute, why not, I bet it’s clear on the st. paul side and it was. The river was brown then gray then brown again. Never white. As I crossed the franklin bridge I could see that the path below in the east flats was clear. The path above was too. Lots of puddles, but no ice or snow. Didn’t think about anything I can remember.

Observations

people

  1. Encountered an older man and woman on the lake street bridge as I climbed up from the steps. As I started to run again, the man said, “And she’s off!”
  2. Running up behind a woman with a dog on a narrow part of the path. She veered in front of me without looking. Called out to her once, “excuse me” but she didn’t hear me. Had to do it again and freaked her out.
  3. Lots of runners on the minneapolis–any on the st. paul side? I don’t think so.

water

  1. So wet! Lots of drips from the trees.
  2. The sewer pipe in the ravine was rushing, gushing, almost roaring.
  3. Big puddles on the sidewalk. Tried to avoid one but stepped right in it.
  4. Car wheels whooshing over the wet pavement.
  5. Always wondering: is that just water or a sly slick spot?
  6. More gushing, dripping, falling water on the St. Paul side.
  7. Huge puddles on the east river road. Big splashes as the cars drove through them.
  8. Tiny ice chunks flowing down the river towards the falls below the lake street bridge.

After finishing the run and walking back, stopped to record the sounds of water on the street, rushing down the sewer, dripping off the eaves, mixed with all the birds:

Last week, I read a great poetry/craft advice column–The Blunt Instrument–on sentimentality and whether or not it’s bad.

It’s not sentiment or emotion itself that’s bad, it’s misused or overused emotion, and this is what writers, maybe especially poets, need to watch out for: unearned sentiment that feels mawkish, cloying, or cheap. In other words, laying it on too thick, or using emotional tropes to trick the reader into thinking they’re feeling something, when actually they’re just recognizing the outlines of a familiar emotion.

I enjoy her description of how excessive, insincere sentiment, which she names as hokey and corny, is determined:

You can’t define an adjective like “hokey” or “corny” (both of which, by the way, mean “mawkishly sentimental”) by any clear objective standard, but some number of people are going to read it and make the puke face.

Her advice for avoiding the puke face? Read a lot and learn how to judge from a wide range of examples when feeling is corny or genuine.

Her final line offers a great way to sum up sentimentality:

Sentimentality is feeling that’s too sure of being understood. 

dec 27/ RUN

3.5 miles
trestle turn around
29 degrees
0% snow-covered!

Back home in Minneapolis. Clear paths and sunshine. Feels harder to run in the afternoon today. Ran to the trestle with no headphones, returned with a playlist. Most memorable thing observed: a car honked its horn for at least 15 seconds when a slower car pulled out in front of it. What an asshole (the honker, not the honked-at). Don’t remember much else from the run other than I was tired–probably because I ran the final mile a minute faster than mile 2. Why? Not sure. I think I’m too tired to have any “brilliant” revelations about my run or life or the gorge.

A few nights ago, unable to sleep, I found a great book by a poet I happen to like a lot. So I checked it on my Libby app (this app is awesome): Theodore Roethke/ On Poetry and Craft

dec 26/RUN

3.3 miles
Austin, Mn
34 degrees

Ran 3/4 of a mile to a elementary school then ran the block around it 4 or 5 times. Ran back to Scott’s parent’s house, into the wind. Sorta-sprinted up the final hill. The sidewalk had a lot of slick spots so I ran on the road. Not too bad. Happy to be able to get outside. Felt good to run and breathe coldish, fresh air. Heard lots of water whooshing under car wheels. Also heard some loud crows. Encountered 2 other runners.

dec 25/ RUN

3.2 miles
Austin, MN
42 degrees

Ran in Austin with Scott this afternoon. Warmish. The streets were clear, the sidewalks had lots of puddles and ice and snow built up at the ends. We ran a mile, walked a minute, three times. Then walked another mile.

Observations

  1. Slick, wet pavement. Be-puddled sidewalks.
  2. Running over the crushed up, light brown gravel on the sidewalk where they had been doing sewer work
  3. Wonderfully tacky inflatable nativity scene in front of someone’s house
  4. Big stretches of bare ground–mud, green grass.

dec 24/RUN

5.5 miles
bottom of Franklin hill and back
34 degrees

Didn’t have time to write this entry until the 26th so I don’t remember that much. I do remember it was a good run and I felt strong and happy to be able to run for 50+ minutes outside at the end of December. And I also remember reaching the bottom of the hill and listening to the water in the flats slowly flowing.

dec 22/RUN

4.2 miles
to the falls and back
33! degrees
25% snow-covered

Ran south again this morning. Beautiful! Above freezing! Only wore one shirt and a vest today. Trying out a new thing where I post 5 observations (see/hear/feel/smell).

At least 6 Observations on My Run

  1. (Heard) Kids having fun, yelling near the savanna.
  2. (Saw) Runner running below on the Winchell Trail near 42nd. Shuffling along, steadily climbing up the snowy path.
  3. (Heard) Booming roar of the rushing water at the falls, Low rumbling roar of a plane overhead, High-pitched, frantic roar of a car engine, speeding on the parkway.
  4. (Saw) The ancient boulder by the bench (mentioned yesterday) partly buried in snow.
  5. (Saw) A snowy view of the other side of the gorge through the bare trees.
  6. (Heard) A biker on the road spitting.
  7. (Saw) A small gray car almost running the stop sign at Godfrey and 46th.
  8. (Saw) A runner’s red quilted vest–not bright red.
  9. (Saw) The curve of the wrought iron fence below the path, bending around the ravine near 42nd.
  10. (Saw) Snow trapped in a small pothole on the path that’s been getting bigger ever year.
  11. (Heard) The slushy crunch of my feet striking the snow on the path.
  12. (Saw) A dropped glove–black, thick–on the edge of the sidewalk.

Felt good again today. Enjoyed running south to the falls and stopping to admire them for a few seconds. Almost forgot–encountered a runner I’ve been seeing a lot on the weekends. Usually I see him running much farther north. Does he usually run this far or has he changed his route too because of the snow? Thought briefly about asking him how far he usually runs but didn’t. Will I see him again next weekend, shuffling along in his black sweatpants and hooded sweatshirt?

I don’t think I have posted this poem before although I know I have admired it.

Choices/ TESS GALLAGHER

I go to the mountain side
of the house to cut saplings,
and clear a view to snow
on the mountain. But when I look up,
saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in
the uppermost branches.
I don’t cut that one.
I don’t cut the others either.
Suddenly, in every tree,   
an unseen nest
where a mountain   
would be.

dec 21/RUN

4.2 miles
to the falls and back
25 degrees
50% snow-covered

Ran south instead of north this morning. Much better conditions on the trail. I ran on bare pavement for much of it. Hooray! The sun was shining and the wind wasn’t too bad. A wonderful morning for a run. If it had been just a little clearer on the paths, I might have called today (near?) perfect conditions. Much easier to notice the river running this way. It’s because there’s not much other than steep slopes between the bluff and the river in this stretch. Nearing Locks and Dam #1, I could see shimmering river near the Ford Bridge. Open water! Beautiful. Ran through Minnehaha Regional Park and stopped for a few seconds to admire the rushing falls. Not frozen over yet.

Encountered lots of runners and walkers. 2 fat tires. I passed one runner on the way up to the double bridge. I could hear them behind me. At first growing more distant, then closer. They were speeding up. For a few minutes, I tried to speed up too but just past 38th street I gave up. I slowed down so they could pass and so I could stop hearing the crunching of their feet stalking me. Maybe someday I won’t be bothered by people following me but today was not that day.

This morning I read a great essay, The Art of Finding by Linda Gregg. She writes:

I am astonished in my teaching to find how many poets are nearly blind to the physical world. They have ideas, memories, and feelings, but when they write their poems they often see them as similes. To break this habit, I have my students keep a journal in which they must write, very briefly, six things they have seen each day—not beautiful or remarkable things, just things. This seemingly simple task usually is hard for them. At the beginning, they typically “see” things in one of three ways: artistically, deliberately, or not at all. Those who see artistically instantly decorate their descriptions, turning them into something poetic: the winter trees immediately become “old men with snow on their shoulders,” or the lake looks like a “giant eye.” The ones who see deliberately go on and on describing a brass lamp by the bed with painful exactness. And the ones who see only what is forced on their attention: the grandmother in a bikini riding on a skateboard, or a bloody car wreck. But with practice, they begin to see carelessly and learn a kind of active passivity until after a month nearly all of them have learned to be available to seeing—and the physical world pours in. Their journals fill up with lovely things like, “the mirror with nothing reflected in it.” This way of seeing is important, even vital to the poet, since it is crucial that a poet see when she or he is not looking—just as she must write when she is not writing. To write just because the poet wants to write is natural, but to learn to see is a blessing. The art of finding in poetry is the art of marrying the sacred to the world, the invisible to the human.

To see carelessly and to learn an active passivity. I remember writing/thinking about active/passive seeing a few years ago on this running log. I’ll have to find where. I think running lets you do this because you can’t actively think/theorize about the landscape as you’re running. You’re too busy running. The details get absorbed passively while you’re doing something else.

I like her idea of writing down 6 things you notice each day. I might try that on my run for a month. I already do this on the log but more informally.

6 Things I Observed On My Run Today

  1. Saw shining, open river water through the trees
  2. Heard then saw a Minneapolis Parks plow approaching me on the path, then veering off onto the road
  3. Heard but didn’t see some kids yelling at the park, about to sled down a steep hill
  4. Saw a person walking through the snow on a part of the Winchell Trail that climbs up closer to the road then back down again
  5. Heard then saw 2 people with a dog below me on the Winchell Trail. Almost sounded like they were skiing as they shuffled along but how could that be?
  6. Noticed how one of the ancient boulders on the path–the one near a bench–had a mound of snow on top of it

This was difficult. Maybe because I’d already written a bunch of observations earlier in this log? I think I’ll trying doing this through January.

White-Eyes
BY MARY OLIVER

In winter 
    all the singing is in 
         the tops of the trees 
             where the wind-bird 

with its white eyes 
    shoves and pushes 
         among the branches. 
             Like any of us 

he wants to go to sleep, 
    but he’s restless— 
         he has an idea, 
             and slowly it unfolds 

from under his beating wings 
    as long as he stays awake. 
         But his big, round music, after all, 
             is too breathy to last. 

So, it’s over. 
    In the pine-crown 
         he makes his nest, 
             he’s done all he can. 

I don’t know the name of this bird, 
    I only imagine his glittering beak 
         tucked in a white wing 
             while the clouds— 

which he has summoned 
    from the north— 
         which he has taught 
             to be mild, and silent— 

thicken, and begin to fall 
    into the world below 
         like stars, or the feathers 
               of some unimaginable bird 

that loves us, 
    that is asleep now, and silent— 
         that has turned itself 
             into snow.

dec 20/RUN

4.3 miles
top of franklin hill turn around
31 degrees
75% snow-covered

Great weather, (still) rotten path. Lots of loose, ankle twisting snow. At least it’s a little better than Tuesday–a bare strip of pavement for most of the way! Even with the rough path, felt good and strong and happy. Looked down at the river and thought about how un-riverlike it looks right now. Just a broad, flat plain of white. As usual, don’t remember much from the run. One thing: the squirrel that darted across traffic and then the path ahead of me. Not sure why it seemed strange–maybe I thought the squirrel was a leaf blowing in the wind? Put my headphones in on the trip back south and felt great. Greeted the Dave, the Daily Walker and then charged up the final hill–the biking path near the road on the other side of the split rail fence, retaining wall, and the walking path that winds through the tunnel of trees. Maybe I should write about this part of the path?

note: For the past 2 weeks, I’ve been reading through and summarizing the last year on this blog. First, I put all the poems I’ve posted on one page (in year 3). Then I started systematically reading through each month online and in my physical notebook and picking out bits I want to keep–I’m on July right now–and creating pages for each month. Yesterday, I finalized a redesign of the site inspired by how I’ve been using lots of colored pencils in my notebook. It’s good coding practice–I customized it myself with my basic css knowledge.

What Big Eyes You Have
Heather Christle

Only today did I notice the abyss
in abysmal and only because my mind
was generating rhymes for dismal,
and it made of the two a pair,
to which much later it joined
baptismal, as—I think—a joke.
I decided to do nothing with
the rhymes, treating them as one does
the unfortunately frequent appearance
of the “crafts” adults require children
to fashion from pipe cleaners
and plastic beads. One is not permitted
to simply throw them away,
but can designate a drawer
that serves as a kind of trash can
never emptied. I suppose one day
it will be full, and then I will know
it is time to set my child free.
The difficulty is my mind leaks
and so it will never fill, despite
the clumps of language I drop in,
and this means my mind can never
be abandoned in the woods
with a kiss and a wave
and a little red kerchief
tied under its chin.

Wow. I can’t decide which I love more, this poem–with its trash can drawer half filled with clumps of language–or her explanation of it on poets.org .

This is one of many poems I wrote in a short period of time early last year, when I stepped away from writing The Crying Book-—my first work of nonfiction—to return to my home form. I was seeking all sorts of wisdom from Merriam-Webster, trying to understand what layers there are to the words I think and speak, finding shiny edges I hadn’t known before: new to me, but long-known to the words themselves. Then, as one does, I followed the words into a figurative space, where they invited me to get lost. I’m never able to get quite as lost as I want to, but with each poem I get a little closer.

what layers there are to the words, what shiny new edges
words leading to a figurative space, inviting her to get lost

dec 17/RUN

3.25 miles
trestle turn around
21 degrees/ feels like 11
100% soft, uneven snow

The path was difficult again today. Soft, uneven, slippery snow. Really working those legs. Not too cold. Forgot to look at the river but did notice the floodplain forest. Encountered several other runners, at least 2 fat tires. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker. At the halfway point stopped to put in my headphones and listen to a playlist. It made the return run much easier. After crossing under the lake street bridge smelled some foot from longfellow grill up above–almost smelled like pizza. A pizza egg scramble maybe? Ran a lot faster for the last half mile.

excerpts from Summer’s Bounty/ May Swenson

berries of Straw
berries of Goose
berries of Huck
berries of Dew

berries of Boisen
berries of Black
berries of Rasp
berries of Blue

melons of Water
melons of Musk
cherries of Pie
cherries of Choke

nuts of Pea
nuts of Wal
nuts of Pecan
nuts of Grape

beans of Jumping
beans of Jelly
beans of Green
beans of Soy

glories of Morning
rooms of Mush
days of Dog
puppies of Hush

I found this poem in the collected works of May Swenson which I checked out of the library a few weeks ago. She really likes to play with how the poem looks on the page, which is cool. Summer’s Bounty reminds me of some of the rhythm chants I do while running–strawberry/blueberry/blackberry. I especially like berries of Goose, beans of green, rooms of Mush and days of Dog.

dec 16/ RUN

4 miles
top of Franklin hill turn around
22 degrees/ feels like 15
99% snow covered

Warmer air. Great temperature for a run. The path was almost completely covered with soft, loose snow. So difficult! A great workout for my legs. Hopefully the path will be more packed or clear soon. Can that be my Christmas present? Greeted Dave the Daily Walker. Was passed–actually briefly swallowed up–by a trot of male runners–a cross country team? Looked at the river a lot. Completely snow covered. If you didn’t know, you might not think it was a river, just a big white field. When I started I wondered how I could keep going–so slick, not slippery but difficult to move in–but by the end, I felt much better. Still happy to stop at 4 miles.

Love this beautiful poem and the final line! I copied it down in my notebook last March and rediscovered it this morning when I was reviewing my notes.

Rapture/ Linda Hogan

Who knows the mysteries of the poppies
when you look across the red fields,
or hear the sound of long thunder,
then the saving rain.
Everything beautiful,
the solitude of the single body
or sometimes, too, when the body is kissed
on the lips or hands or eyelids tender.
Oh for the pleasure of living in a body.
It may be, it may one day be
this is a world haunted by happiness,
where people finally are loved
in the light of leaves,
the feel of bird wings passing by.
Here it might be that no one wants power.
They don’t want more.
And so they are in the forest,
old trees,
or those small but grand.
And when you sleep, rapture, beauty,
may seek you out.
Listen. There is
secret joy,
sweet dreams you may never forget.
How worthy the being
in the human body. If,
when you are there, you see women
wading on the water
and clouds in the valley,
the smell of rain,
or a lotus blossom rises out of round green leaves,
remember there is always something
besides our own misery.

remember there is always something
besides our own misery

What if this final line was changed to beside our own misery? Reminds me of Ross Gay and his book of delights. He talks about how our experiences of joy are always in tandem with suffering and can be linked with others to create beautiful communities.

dec 15/RUN

3.2 miles
trestle turn around
5 degrees/ feels like -3
100% snow-covered

The cold didn’t bother me at all. The path, however, was rough. Very uneven. Will it be like this all winter? I hope not. Decided not to wear my yaktrax. A mistake? Maybe. Sunny. Bright. Not too much wind. Several runners and walkers. Encountered 3 fat tires by the trestle. Admired the floodplain forest but don’t recall seeing the river even once. I suppose that’s partly because I’m running on the biking path, which is closer to the road, farther from the rim of the gorge. Listened to the crunching snow and my zipper pull hitting my jacket.

dec 14/RUN

3.25 miles
trestle turn around
15 degrees/feels like 0
100% snow-covered

Wasn’t planning to run this morning but when I went outside to shovel and felt how calm and beautiful it was, I had to go to the gorge. Wore my yaktrax which helped a lot, I’m sure. Still difficult in the soft, shifting snow. No bare pavement, hardly any spots where the snow was packed down. Everything was bright and so white, I had trouble seeing the path and where it was more packed. I don’t think I looked at the river once. Encountered small groups of runners and then a water station set up near the lake street bridge. Must be an organized run. Saw a few fat tires, some walkers. One guy was running with snowshoes or a snowboard or something in his hands. Felt strong–my form seems to get better in the snow. Not sure why. It is always so much easier running in the winter.

layers: 2 pairs of tights, green shirt, orange sweatshirt, black vest, gloves, buff, hat. Not too cold or too warm. Just right.

Saw this marathon writing plan on twitter this morning–I recall seeing earlier this year or last year too. I’d like to modify it to combine running and writing. Sidenote: I wish you could still download images off of twitter.

The Body
BY MARIANNE BORUCH

has its little hobbies. The lung
likes its air best after supper,
goes deeper there to trade up
for oxygen, give everything else
away. (And before supper, yes,
during too, but there’s
something about evening, that
slow breath of the day noticed: oh good,
still coming, still going … ) As for
bones—femur, spine,
the tribe of them in there—they harden
with use. The body would like
a small mile or two. Thank you.
It would like it on a bike
or a run. Or in the water. Blue.
And food. A habit that involves
a larger circumference where a garden’s
involved, beer is brewed, cows
wake the farmer with their fullness,
a field surrenders its wheat, and wheat
understands I will be crushed
into flour and starry-dust
the whole room, the baker
sweating, opening a window
to acknowledge such remarkable
confetti. And the brain,
locked in its strange
dual citizenship, idles there in the body,
neatly terraced and landscaped.
Or left to ruin, such a brain,
wild roses growing
next to the sea. The body is
gracious about that. Oh, their
scent sometimes. Their
tangle. In truth, in secret,
the first thing
in morning the eye longs to see.

“the brain,/ locked in its strange/ dual citizenship, idles there in the body”

dec 13/RUN

5.2 miles
franklin hill turn around
15 degrees/ feels like 8
100% snow-covered

Another great winter run! Beautiful cold air. Not crisp though–how cold does it have to be to have crisp, cold freezing-the-snot-in-your-nose air? The paths were slick and soft. Maybe next time I should wear my yak trax? Saw the Daily Walker early on. Who else? I can’t remember. A few walkers, several fat tires, a couple runners? Mostly it seemed silent except for the crunching snow, the construction noise, and the low steady buzz of the far off traffic. Heard some voices down below in the gorge–what were they doing? Stumbled over a few snowy ice chunks but didn’t fall or hurt myself. Spotted the dark trail of open water surrounded by the white river. Ran under a heavy gray sky ready to unzip from the weight of impending snow. Right after I finished, the light snow showers started. During the run, my left knee was a little sore and after, my left hip. Probably my IT band reminding me that she’s here and needs to be stretched more.

Always Having Fun with Medical Terms: I T Band Again

  • Impossible Tangrams
  • Interested Termites
  • Indistinguishable Twins
  • Indifferent Theses
  • Infamous Tattletales
  • Imprecise Tailors
  • Incanting Taylors
  • Impeded Traffic
  • Impeachable Tyrants
  • Icicle Tinsel
  • Invigorated Triathletes
  • Insatiable Tricksters
  • Ill-fitting T-shirts

Wow. Is IT the best acronym ever? Maybe.

excerpts from October
Louise Glück


1.
Is it winter again, is it cold again,
didn’t Frank just slip on the ice,
didn’t he heal, weren’t the spring seeds planted
didn’t the night end,
didn’t the melting ice
flood the narrow gutters
wasn’t my body
rescued, wasn’t it safe
didn’t the scar form, invisible
above the injury
terror and cold,
didn’t they just end, wasn’t the back garden
harrowed and planted—
I remember how the earth felt, red and dense,
in stiff rows, weren’t the seeds planted,
didn’t vines climb the south wall
I can’t hear your voice
for the wind’s cries, whistling over the bare ground
I no longer care
what sound it makes
when was I silenced, when did it first seem
pointless to describe that sound
what it sounds like can’t change what it is—
didn’t the night end, wasn’t the earth
safe when it was planted
didn’t we plant the seeds,
weren’t we necessary to the earth,
the vines, were they harvested?

6.
The brightness of the day becomes
the brightness of the night;
the fire becomes the mirror.
My friend the earth is bitter; I think
sunlight has failed her.
Bitter or weary, it is hard to say.
Between herself and the sun,
something has ended.
She wants, now, to be left alone;
I think we must give up
turning to her for affirmation.
Above the fields,
above the roofs of the village houses,
the brilliance that made all life possible
becomes the cold stars.
Lie still and watch:
they give nothing but ask nothing.
From within the earth’s
bitter disgrace, coldness and barrenness
my friend the moon rises:
she is beautiful tonight, but when is she not beautiful?

dec 11/RUN

4.5 miles
top of franklin hill and back again
2 degrees/ feels like -5
100% snow-covered

Now this is winter running! Colder “real” temp than yesterday but felt much warmer. Sunny, hardly any wind. Greeted Dave the Daily Walker. He called out, “what a great day!” (was that it? now I can’t remember, but something like that.) He’s hard core–no coat, just several layers.

things I remember

  1. hearing a few geese
  2. focusing a lot on following the packed down part of the path
  3. noticing how less irritating my steps were when running versus walking–no grinding, quick, sharp crunches
  4. at first, noticing how the river was almost completely iced over
  5. later, just before I turned around, noticing how there was a black trail of open water in the middle
  6. feeling so quiet and peaceful–in the long gaps between cars, it was wonderfully silent.
  7. seeing 2 other people–Dave, the Daily Walker at the beginning and another walker almost at the end
  8. wondering what people driving by thought of me out here running in the cold
  9. mistaking a dead leaf fluttering on the snow for a mouse
  10. taking note of two big stones stacked on top of the big boulder by the sprawling oak–those rocks won’t blow away or tip over!
  11. slipping slightly on the path a few times

layers: less today than yesterday! one green shirt, one pink jacket, one gray jacket, two pairs of tights, two pairs of socks, a hood, a buff, a hat, gloves, mittens

Outside the Window the Whole World is Humming/ Devin Kelly

“I am happy for the smallest of moments The first desire is to bottle them The second is to believe they will last forever Isn’t it better that nothing does” Really like the title of this poem and the idea/process of writing it.

dec 8/RUN

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
32 degrees
5% ice and snow covered

Ran straight into the wind on the way north. Met up with Scott just past the trestle and ran south with the wind at our backs. Was able to introduce Scott to Dave the Daily Walker. Heard some geese. Admired the river, looking like it was on fire, bursting through the bare trees. Gray sky, humid air. Counted to 4. Had to wipe my eyes repeatedly–very annoying. Walking back through our neighborhood, pointed out a small circular hole in the street to Scott. Not big enough to mess up a car or a bike but maybe a foot? After asking why there wasn’t a cone over it, Scott noticed that there had been a cone but it was jammed down into the hole. Wow. Who does that?

one more thing: After posting this entry, I remembered something else about my run. As I started, I noticed my ponytail brushing up against the back of my jacket. I don’t recall noticing it for the entire run. Did I just get used to it, or did it stop brushing my jacket?

What Would Root
BY KATIE FARRIS

Walking through a cathedral of oak trees
and bristlecone pines, scolded by squirrels
in their priestly black, their white collars
wagging with the force of their scolding, I
was struck, simultaneously, in both eyes,
by some sort of flying detritus—pollen or seeds—
and stopped to lean against a rock
to scrub it (I thought) away. It was May,

it was May, it was May, and the air was sweet
with pine and Island Mountain lilac. The squirrels,
I mentioned them already, etc, and the lizards
ran down the spines of rocks like a bad feeling. I
could see everything: red-headed hummingbirds
dipped their beaks into the little red hoods of penstemon,
and I, a redhead, could hear everything: a red-crested
woodpecker, who was not offended I did not know his name.

And I could see everything: it was all green, really;
even the red was anti-green, and though my eyes
ached from everything-seeing, I could taste the granite
in the spring (oh yes, I drank water from the ground; I
was wild, even then, though the squirrels scolded
me and tried to convince me I was not). Soon I crested
a rise; the land spread itself greenly for me and I
wished I had seed to toss into that green, just to see

what would root. My right eye would not close to this
view; why would it; but when I reached up to touch it, I
felt that there was a twig emerging, and another from my
other eye; that they were a part of my body I could not doubt;
they were living and enervated and jutting out. I
sat down, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck,
understanding for the first time they were not hairs, but roots.
I could see everything; it was all green; the twigs in my eyes

tasted sunlight with my mouth; the roots drew the salt
from my sweat into their vacuum, and I was no longer hungry:
my metamorphosis had rendered me perfectly self-sufficient. I
could see everything; the roots in my skull shifted and I
lay down beneath my own branches. I had to wiggle a bit to
find a place to lay my head; the rock was very hard,
and I needed softer ground—yes, a place for the top
of my head to come off, to nuzzle into the earth, to drink.

Wow! I love this green poem. So good. So green. So wild. So wonderful to imagine rooting in a field. Love this line: “even the red was anti-green” I want to spend more time with this poem and add it to my collection of green poems.

dec 7/RUN

5.25 miles
bottom of franklin loop and back again
29 degrees/feels like 20
less than 5% ice covered

Another great winter run. Sunny, not too much wind, clear path. Heard some cawing crows before I started. Enjoyed breathing in the cold air. Did not enjoy how that same cold air made my eyes water even with sunglasses on. Encountered lots of other runners. A few fat tires, walkers, dogs. No more squirrels. Heard the nail gun at the house near the trestle that they’ve been working on for months. Smelled some type of food coming from the Longfellow Grill–some brunch thing, I guess. Ran down the franklin hill, passing at least 5 people running up it. Decided to see how far I would get in 25 minutes–to the gate near Annie Young Meadows Park–and then turn around. Ran up the hill until I reached the turnoff for the bridge then walked for 2 minutes. Started running again, slowly gaining on 2 women ahead of me. Finally passed them and then ran much faster than I wanted to stay ahead of them. Mistook 2 trashcans for a group of people. Also thought a bright yellow jacket draped over one of the ancient boulders by the sprawling oak was a person. Good thing I didn’t greet them! On my walk home from the river, greeted Dave, the Daily Walker, just heading out for his walk.

Epistemology
Catherine Barnett

Mostly I’d like to feel a little less, know a little more.
Knots are on the top of my list of what I want to know.
Who was it who taught me to burn the end of the cord
to keep it from fraying?
Not the man who called my life a debacle,
a word whose sound I love.
In a debacle things are unleashed.
Roots of words are like knots I think when I read the dictionary.
I read other books, sure. Recently I learned how trees communicate,
the way they send sugar through their roots to the trees that are ailing.
They don’t use words, but they can be said to love.
They might lean in one direction to leave a little extra light for another tree.
And I admire the way they grow right through fences, nothing
stops them, it’s called inosculation: to unite by openings, to connect
or join so as to become or make continuous, from osculare,
to provide with a mouth, from osculum, little mouth.
Sometimes when I’m alone I go outside with my big little mouth
and speak to the trees as if I were a birch among birches.

Oh, I love this poem! I remember encountering it a few years ago when I was trying to figure out what the term/process is for trees that grow through fences. It came up again this morning on my twitter feed. I’m not sure what I think about the first line: “Mostly I’d like to feel a little less, know a little more.” I’ve been writing a lot about the limits of knowing and the need to feel the force of ideas more. Yet, I like this idea of knowing as becoming familiar with things (knowing knots) and acquiring interesting facts (about preventing fraying, how trees communicate). I’d like to distinguish between knowing as familiarity and knowing as conquering/mastering/fully understanding. I’d also like to put this poem next to another poem I discovered this fall, Learning the Trees, which I posted in my sept 15 log entry. I want to ruminate some more on the difference between learning and knowing and Knowing.

dec 5/RUN

5 miles
bottom of franklin and back again
31 degrees
5-10% ice and snow covered

Another great run! Sun. Almost above freezing. Hardly any wind. Today the river was beautiful. More gray than brown. Shimmering. Still open and flowing. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker. Admired the occasional tree painted white on one side. Lamented the parts of the walking path–especially where it dips below the road–that are still covered in almost a foot of snow. Noticed how lovely the view was framed by the 1-94 bridge as I neared the bottom of the franklin hill. Checked out the Winchell Trail and, after noticing some footprints in the snow, wondered who walks it this time of year. Ran under a moving train at the trestle! I thought ADM had closed but I guess not. I think this is only the second time I’ve run under a train in the 5+ years I’ve been running here. Liked watching the drips from the train drop down from the trestle. So cool. At the end of my run, stopped at the split rail fence above the ravine. I could almost, but not quite, hear the water trickling/dripping/splashing on the limestone ledge.

Hotel Lullaby
Srikanth Reddy

No matter how often you knock
on the ocean the ocean

just waves. No matter
how often you enter the ocean

the ocean still says
no one’s home. You must leave

her dear Ursula. As I write this
they polish the big

chandelier. Every prism
a sunset in abstract

or bijou foyer depending
on where you stand.

They take it apart every Fall
& call it Spring cleaning.

They bring me my tea.
They ask me my name

& I tell them — Ursula,
I don’t even know

how to miss who you left.
So many cabanas

to choose from tonight
but only one view.

It’s the sea.
What keeps me awake

is the sound of you sleeping
beside me again my dear Ursula,

Ursula, Ursula dear — then
you’re nothing

but waves & I break.

So many wonderful lines in this poem and I love the way a story unfolds the more times I read it. The line about how the ocean just waves is great and so is the one about spring cleaning in the fall but I think my favorite right now is “so many cabanas/ to choose from tonight/but only one view. / It’s the sea.”

dec 3/RUN

4.5 miles
under the franklin bridge and back
28 degrees
25% snow and ice covered

Winter running! Icy in the neighborhood, but not too bad on the path. Sunny, bright, beautiful. Remembered to look at the river today. Not as pretty as the path. Boring brown. No ice yet. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker–not just “good morning” but “how are you?” too! Spent a lot of time trying to avoid big icy-snowy chunks, which are almost impossible for me to see with my vision. Also spent time de-fogging my sunglasses. How do people run with sunglasses? I still haven’t figured it out. At the start of the run, encountered a walker with his dogs. I think he called out, “will power!,” which I assumed meant he thought that the only reason I was out here in the winter was because I had a strong will. I wanted to yell out, “This isn’t miserable! I love being out here in this cold!”

additional note: Just remembered about the sun and my shadow. As I ran north, she was behind me and off to the side. Occasionally I could see her out of the corner of my left eye–well, not the actual shadow but the hint of something there almost. I kept thinking someone was about to pass me. I think I looked back to check at least 3 or 4 times. Strange.

This poem! So beautiful and heartbreaking and exciting as a form.

Heartbeats
Melvin Dixon – 1950-1992

Work out. Ten laps.
Chin ups. Look good.

Steam room. Dress warm.
Call home. Fresh air.

Eat right. Rest well.
Sweetheart. Safe sex.

Sore throat. Long flu.
Hard nodes. Beware.

Test blood. Count cells.
Reds thin. Whites low.

Dress warm. Eat well.
Short breath. Fatigue.

Night sweats. Dry cough.
Loose stools. Weight loss.

Get mad. Fight back.
Call home. Rest well.

Don’t cry. Take charge.
No sex. Eat right.

Call home. Talk slow.
Chin up. No air.

Arms wide. Nodes hard.
Cough dry. Hold on.

Mouth wide. Drink this.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

No air. Breathe in.
Breathe in. No air.

Black out. White rooms.
Head hot. Feet cold.

No work. Eat right.
CAT scan. Chin up.

Breathe in. Breathe out.
No air. No air.

Thin blood. Sore lungs.
Mouth dry. Mind gone.

Six months? Three weeks?
Can’t eat. No air.

Today? Tonight?
It waits. For me.

Sweet heart. Don’t stop.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

dec 2/RUN

3.25 miles
us bank stadium

Scott and I ran inside the stadium for the first time this season. The Minnesota Distance Running Association no longer manages it so it was a little more expensive and lot more fiddly–purchasing tickets, taking 2 separate elevators. I strongly dislike elevators. Maybe because of the change or the increase in price, there weren’t that many people there. We had a nice run. Not sure how many times I’ll do it this season but it’s always cool to get to run inside the stadium, especially in the evening. Not much I remember about the run except the music: every song sounded like Selena Gomez…excerpt the brief respite when they played Lizzo.

December/ David Baker

Instead, there is an hour, a moment,
a slight fading of the light like a loss of power

in the neighborhood. Then it’s dark. You can’t see
the trees any more, the old snow, the dog that barks

from the door of his shed because it’s night now
and time to be fed. Is he huddled now, over his paws?

—And one Canada goose so low in passing
above the barn you still hear the shadow.

This weekend I heard a lot of geese over head. Too high in the sky to hear their shadows passing, but I did hear their honks. Such beautiful, haunting sounds! This season, my favorite. I really like this poem and what it captures. and how it de-privileges vision–hearing the dog bark, the shadow of the goose, feeling (when unable to see) the tree, the old snow.

dec 1/RUN

4.3 miles
top of franklin hill and back
30 degrees/snow
75% snow-covered

What a run!! Snow was falling gently–sometimes annoyingly in my face but, who cares? The paths weren’t slick and icy. Geese were honking overhead. Pretty sure I didn’t look at the river once. Too busy admiring the snow. Almost missed the Daily Walker but he called out to me. He was walking with his wife. Cool. Felt strong and happy and relaxed. Don’t remember thinking about anything except for when I should turn around. Towards the end of my run saw a dog and its 2 humans about to cross the road. The humans were wearing snow shoes. Winter goal: to try out snow shoes. I’ve wanted to do this ever since I met fast Eddie at the Y and he told me about racing 10Ks in snow shoes. Today is a wonderful start to winter running season!

Let It Be Forgotten
Sara Teasdale – 1884-1933

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

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

I love this poem. I want to memorize it and then recite it like a little prayer.

nov 28/RUN

3.2 miles
lake harriet
25 degrees

Ran around Lake Harriet with Scott on Thanksgiving day. Some ice and snow but hardly any wind. Not too cold. The water is still open–no ice skating yet. Lots of people walking and running. A few bikers, some fat tires. Driving over to the lake on the parkway, it looked like a winter wonderland with all of the snow-covered trees.

Tonight for dessert, I am making an apple crumble. It is baking in the oven and smells delicious as I write this entry. Looked up “apple” at the poetry foundation site and found this wonderful celebration of all things A:

The Letter A
BY DARREN SARDELLI

The letter A is awesome!
It simply is the best.
Without an A, you could not get
an A+ on a test.
You’d never see an acrobat
or eat an apple pie.
You couldn’t be an astronaut
or kiss your aunt goodbye.
An antelope would not exist.
An ape would be unknown.
You’d never hear a person
say “Afraid” or “All Alone”.
The A’s in avocado
would completely disappear
and certain words would be forgot
like “ankle”, “arm”, and “ear”.

Without the A, you couldn’t aim
an arrow in the air.
You wouldn’t ask for apricots
or almonds at a fair.
Aruba and Australia
would be missing from a map.
You’d never use an ATM,
an apron, or an app.
The arctic fox and aardvark
would be absent from the zoo,
and vowels, as you know them,
would be E, I, O, and U.
There wouldn’t be an A chord
on the instruments you play.
Let’s appreciate, admire,
and applaud the letter A!

nov 26/RUN

5.25 miles
franklin loop
36 degrees

What a great run! So beautiful and brown and calm outside. Tonight the first winter storm arrives and tomorrow the gorge will be white, most likely until March or April. I have loved this late fall running when the temperature is in the 30s and the paths are bare. And I will love winter running and the crunching snow, the impossibly beautiful branches painted white. Felt strong and relaxed. Ended my run at the overlook to check out the wider view then hiked down the gravel trail to the ravine. Lots of water coming out of the sewer pipe, making its way to the river. At the first ledge, the water was dribbling, sounding like the shower when I’m outside of the bathroom. At the second ledge, the water was moving more swiftly, sounding like when I’m inside the bathroom, under the shower. Really cool. As I was running, then later walking, I kept thinking about how this was probably the last bare day of the year. I will miss the way the blueish gray water complements the rich brown forest and the sweet smell of mulching leaves and the view above the rim of the gorge on the path that winds through the tunnel of trees (and doesn’t get plowed in the winter).

Four-Word Lines
May Swenson – 1913-1989

Your eyes are just
like bees, and I
feel like a flower.
Their brown power makes
a breeze go over
my skin. When your
lashes ride down and
rise like brown bees’
legs, your pronged gaze
makes my eyes gauze.
I wish we were
in some shade and
no swarm of other
eyes to know that
I’m a flower breathing
bare, laid open to
your bees’ warm stare.
I’d let you wade
in me and seize
with your eager brown
bees’ power a sweet
glistening at my core.

nov 23/RUN

4 miles
trestle turn around + extra
32 degrees

I think I got my layers right today: 1 shirt, vest, pair of running tights. Not too hot or too cold. My shadow led me as we ran north. Do I remember anything else from my run? Encountered a roller skier. Lots of runners. I think 2 of them were in shorts. At least 1 bike. Dogs, walkers. Heard a saw buzzing across the parkway. Counted to 4 as I ran. Ended at the overlook. Today was one of those runs that felt great and also like nothing–time stopped, I was just there at the gorge moving.

Speaking of runners in shorts: last night as we (Scott, me, our son) drove back from a concert on the river road, we saw a runner running in complete darkness with shorts and no shirt on. The temperature was 25/feels like around 15. What the hell? He didn’t have anything with him–no sweatshirt to put on if he got cold. I hope he made it home okay.

Like Coins, November
BY ELIZABETH KLISE VON ZERNECK

We drove past late fall fields as flat and cold
as sheets of tin and, in the distance, trees

were tossed like coins against the sky. Stunned gold
and bronze, oaks, maples stood in twos and threes:

some copper bright, a few dull brown and, now
and then, the shock of one so steeled with frost

it glittered like a dime. The autumn boughs
and blackened branches wore a somber gloss

that whispered tails to me, not heads. I read
memorial columns in their trunks; their leaves

spelled UNUM, cent; and yours, the only head . . .
in penny profile, Lincoln-like (one sleeve,

one eye) but even it was turning tails
as russet leaves lay spent across the trails.

What a cool idea to think about November trees as looking like coins. Love: “the shock of one so steeled with frost/it glittered like a dime.” and “blackened branches work a somber gloss/that whispered tails to me, not heads.”

nov 22/RUN

4 miles
minnehaha falls loop
23 degrees/feels like 14

What a wonderful run! Love the cold air and the sun and the clear view through the trees to the river. Ran south today to the falls. Was greeted by the Daily Walker who was heading north on the path. Heard some kids playing at their school playground. Noticed someone ahead of me turning down to the Winchell Trail at 42nd. They were wearing a heavy coat and shorts. Shorts when it feels like 14 degrees doesn’t surprise anymore, having lived here in Minnesota for the last 16 years. Approaching the falls, I could hear the water still roaring. The sound of it mixed with car traffic and a leaf blower. The water is very high at the top. I wonder when it will freeze. Running back north, I passed another runner. For about a minute I could hear their footsteps behind me. Didn’t see any roller skiers today or fat tires.

Checked out May Swenson’s poetry collection, Nature, from the library the other day and found this poem:

View to the North
May Swenson

As you grow older, its gets colder.
You see through things.
I’m looking through the trees,

their torn and thinning leaves,
to where chill blue water
is roughened by wind.

Day by day the scene opens,
enlarges, rips of space
appear where full branches

used to snug the view.
Soon it will be wide, stripped,
entirely unobstructed:

I’ll see right through
the twining waves, to
the white horizon, to the place

where the North begins.
Magnificent! I’ll be thinking
while my eyeballs freeze.

nov 20/RUN

4 miles
trestle turn around + extra
40 degrees

What a wonderful run on an overcast day! The sky seems so full, the air so thick. Rain and maybe snow moving in. As I ran through the tunnel of trees and looked down at the forest, I noticed (not for the first time) the black sewer pipe with the white plastic cap sticking out of the slope. A few minutes later I looked up and saw a squirrel’s nest, normally hidden from view by a thick veil of green leaves. And I thought about how many mysteries are solved in November: How does the water from the neighborhood make its way to the river? Sewer pipes in the slope. How high up are we and where is the bottom? There’s the forest floor, not too far down. Where does the trail that winds through the trees begin, end? At a bench near the franklin bridge. Where do the squirrels go when they’re not annoying me? A big nest up at the top of that one tree. Where does the water weep and seep through the limestone cliff? The seeping water freezes in the cold, creating white patches easy to spot. One mystery not yet solved: Down on the sand flats, just before the beach ends and the trail travels back into the forest, is that two people fishing or two trees standing? Running high on the gorge, I’ve stared intently at the mystery forms twice as I ran by and I still can’t decide.

Stopped to stare at the thing on top of the tall boulder: a mitten with fur lining. Realized it was placed on top of the stack stones to keep them from falling off. Can’t decide if I appreciate this or not.

[Lately when sorrows come]
Susan Laughter (law – ter) Meyers

Lately when sorrows come—fast, without warning—
whipping their wings down the sky,
I know to let them.
Not inviting them, but allowing each
with a deep breath as if inhaling a wish I can’t undo.

Some days the sky is so full of sorrows
they could be mistaken for shadows of unnamed
gods flapping the air with their loose black sleeves:
the god of head-on collisions,
the god of amputated limbs,
the god of I’ll-dress-you-in-mourning.

Is the buzz in the August trees,
that pulsing husk of repetition, an omen?
I hear it build to a final shaking. I hear it build
louder and louder, then nothing.
Like a long, picaresque novel that’s suddenly over.
Like the last inning of kickball until the rain.

What falls from the sky is not always rain
or any kind of weather. Call it precipitous.
I’m fooling myself, of course. Wearing sorrow
is nothing like skin shedding water.
It’s more like the weight of a cloak of crows.

And yet the sun still shines on the honey locust
arching its fringe over grass. Lit, too,
the pasture and its barbwire strung from post
to leaning post. See how the stump by the road
is rotting and how the small yellow leaves, twirling,
catch light on their way to the ground.

The more times I read this poem, the more I love it. A cloak of crows! Call it precipitous! That pulsing husk of repetition! Whipping their wings! So many great lines.

Let it Be, revisited

Before heading out for my run, I started playing around with a poem experiment I started in 2018, based on the phrase (which is on my coffee mug)–Let it be. Here’s a few I came up with:

Let ink trails be a way in
to a world of intelligent trees
who incubate theories
in their subterranean information thoroughfare.

Let indifferent trapezoids be
a model for how to live–
never interested in even, parallel lines
never caring to reach infinitely towards the sky?

Let indian takeout be
what saves us from eating
icky tacos again.

Let incanting toads be what finally
sings us to sleep
so we can dream better dreams
imagining terrains that believe in us.

Let invisible threads be revealed
so we may see how we belong
connected, tethered to each other–
vulnerable to violence yet
also to the inviting touch of another.

Let indefatigable toddlers be
given inside time to quell their irritating tantrums.

Let indigo tunics be required attire
for ill-tempered teetotalers

Let insufferable Todd be
forced to drink iced tea
while we imbibe tequila

nov 19/RUN

6.1 miles
flats turn around
39 degrees

Gloomy and humid. Greeted the Daily Walker. Encountered some squirrels. Admired the tree tunnel and the forest floor. Noticed the seeping water on the limestone cliffs near the U in the flats. All frozen. Ice patches everywhere. Almost looked like raindrops were falling on the river but I didn’t feel them on my skin. Saw some geese hanging out in the park. Ended near the tall boulder. Whatever was on top of it was still there–I think it’s a hat, not a dead animal. It’s always interesting what I see through my cone dystrophy eyes.

Happiness
BY JANE KENYON

There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

nov 18/RUN

4 miles
river road, north/south
33 degrees

A good run. A little harder at the beginning, a littler easier at the end. Stopped at the 2 mile mark to put in my headphones and listen to a playlist. The sky was gray, the gorge gold, rust, light brown. Was able to notice several of the sewer pipes sticking out of the steep slope. Thought about crossing the lake street bridge but didn’t at the last minute because a car was coming. Looked down at the river from high above, noticing the patches of snow. At some point during the run, caught the slightly sickly sweet of mulching leaves. After finishing, stood still and stared hard at the forest below, breathing in the colors and the space and the soft fuzzy shapes. The tall rock didn’t have rocks on it, but a dead squirrel?–not sure, I didn’t want to stare too hard and my vision is not great these days.

The Crazy Woman by Gwendolyn Brooks

I shall not sing a May song.
A May song should be gay.
I’ll wait until November
And sing a song of gray.

I’ll wait until November
That is the time for me.
I’ll go out in the frosty dark
And sing most terribly.

And all the little people
Will stare at me and say,
“That is the Crazy Woman
Who would not sing in May.”

I love this little poem and the idea of wanting to sing in November instead of May. Not sure what a song of gray would sound like, but maybe I’ll go out and sing one tomorrow? Why wouldn’t I? Perhaps one of the reasons I like November is that it is unloved by so many–not so much because I want to give it love (even though I do) but because it’s less crowded out here–just us crazy people.

nov 17/RUN

4 miles
top of Franklin hill turn around
38 degrees

A great run. Still windy but not as bad as yesterday. A little cooler. The snow has melted and the forest floor is brown and gold and burnt orange and rusty red. Thought about space and breathing and views. Chanted in triplets: strawberry, raspberry, blueberry. Admired the river and the snow lining its shore. Noticed the Winchell Trail below me, especially at the overlook past the railroad trestle. Thought about how my recent poems about this route almost all take place at the beginning or the end of the run–is it because I am not thinking about anything during the middle of it? Talked to the Daily Walker and finally, after 4 or 5 years, we introduced ourselves! His name is Dave. Dave is one of my favorite people. We agreed that being outside in the winter is the best. I would like to write more about November and how wonderful it is at the gorge: no snow, no unruly green, clearer views, less oppressive weather, quiet colors, earthy smells, occasional geese, wild turkeys.

I like this poem, but don’t agree with this assessment of November:

November
BY MAGGIE DIETZ

Show’s over, folks. And didn’t October do
A bang-up job? Crisp breezes, full-throated cries
Of migrating geese, low-floating coral moon.

Nothing left but fool’s gold in the trees.
Did I love it enough, the full-throttle foliage,
While it lasted? Was I dazzled? The bees

Have up and quit their last-ditch flights of forage
And gone to shiver in their winter clusters.
Field mice hit the barns, big squirrels gorge

On busted chestnuts. A sky like hardened plaster
Hovers. The pasty river, its next of kin,
Coughs up reed grass fat as feather dusters.

Even the swarms of kids have given in
To winter’s big excuse, boxed-in allure:
TVs ricochet light behind pulled curtains.

The days throw up a closed sign around four.
The hapless customer who’d wanted something
Arrives to find lights out, a bolted door.

nov 16/RUN

3.3 miles
trestle turn around
45 degrees
16 mph wind

Warmer but so windy! Seems like a theme for this week: running straight into the wind. Today my visor almost came off at least 3 times. 2 times I had to stutter step to avoid stupid squirrels darting in front of me. The view of the river from my favorite part of the trail was beautiful–so much to see, not hidden behind leaves. Felt much colder than 45 but I was still overdressed with 2 shirts, tights and shorts. Encountered several groups of walkers, a few runners, some bikers. No roller skiers. Was pelted by leaves swirling in the wind. Don’t remember any distinctive noises–no headphones for the first half, running playlist as I returned.

The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee
BY N. SCOTT MOMADAY

I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water
I am the shadow that follows a child
I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows
I am an eagle playing with the wind
I am a cluster of bright beads
I am the farthest star
I am the cold of dawn
I am the roaring of the rain
I am the glitter on the crust of the snow
I am the long track of the moon in a lake
I am a flame of four colors
I am a deer standing away in the dusk
I am a field of sumac and the pomme blanche
I am an angle of geese in the winter sky
I am the hunger of a young wolf
I am the whole dream of these things

You see, I am alive, I am alive
I stand in good relation to the earth
I stand in good relation to the gods
I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful
I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte
You see, I am alive, I am alive

nov 14/RUN

6.5 miles
river road, south/falls/minnehaha creek/lake nokomis
30 degrees
30-40% snow-covered

Ran over to Lake Nokomis for the first time in a while. Ran straight into the wind for most of it. The path was slick in spots. Will this small bit of snow ever go away or it will just keep melting during the day, then re-freezing at night? Some annoying squirrels almost got in my way. Pretty sure I spotted an albino squirrel on the creek path between the duck bridge and the echo bridge. No ice on the creek but the lake was covered with snow. When I reached the lake, I met Scott and ran around it with him. He pointed out how the snow illuminated a narrow crack in the ice that spanned the entire lake. Strange looking out at the water as we ran, so many trees have been cut down–the view here too clear, too exposed. For most of the day it was sunny, but during my run it was gray. Felt like January.

Hardly a month left in this decade and I’ve been thinking about what I’ve done in the past ten years. So much of it is documented on my many virtual spaces and in my notebooks. Might be fun to read through it all.

I love Maggie Smith’s poetry. So many beautiful ideas and images. The hum as an appliance inside of us, then as the soul. So cool.

The Hum/maggie smith

It’s not a question
without the mark: How do we live
with trust in a world that will continue

to betray us. Hear my voice
not lift at the end. How do we trust
when we continue to be betrayed.

For the first time I doubt
we’ll find our way back. But how
can we not. See how the terminal

mark allows a question
to dress as statement and vice versa.
Sometimes if I am quiet and still,

I can hear a small hum inside me,
an appliance left running.
Years ago I thought it was coming

from my bones. The hum
kept me company, and I thought
thank god for bones, for the fidelity

of bones—they’ll be there
until the end and then some.
Now what. How to continue.

I’ve started calling the hum the soul.
Today I have to hold
my breath to hear it. What question

does it keep not asking
and not asking, never changing
its pitch. How do I answer.

nov 9/RUN

4.8 miles
to downtown
44 degrees

A one-way run. Thought I could avoid it, but ran straight into the wind for at least 1/2 of it. A little too warm. Tough on sore legs. Surprisingly, not too crowded for a mild Saturday. Did I see my shadow briefly? I think so. Noticed a seep frozen over in the flats, below the west bank of the U. I have been reading about springs and seeps and how they are much easier to spot in the winter because the water freezes, sometimes creating icy ledges/boulders and ice pillars. Never knew it before but people like to climb this ice. Not me, but I’d love to see other people doing it. Spied 2 roller skiers. Encountered several runners running up the Franklin hill while I was running down it. Ran more of the I-35 hill than I thought I could. Walked the rest. Felt strong and refreshed at the top, running down past the Guthrie and Mill City Museum. Scott passed in front of me, running from the other direction. Even after I yelled his name several times he didn’t hear me, so I had to chase him up a short, steep hill.

Currently I have too many ideas to write about. Thinking about the wild, being bewildered, ways in and ways out, layers, inside/outside/periphery. All of this related to the river gorge and park management and running on the west river parkway.

On Friday, went to the South High Choir concert to hear my daughter’s middle-school choir sing with the high school choirs. Wonderful. I love the choir director at South. She gave the students 4 goals: 1. Breathe, 2. Listen, 3. Move somebody and 4. Have fun. These goals are great. I’d like to mash them up with Mary Oliver’s: 1. Pay Attention, 2. Be Astonished, 3. Tell About it.

  1. Breathe
  2. Listen
  3. Pay Attention
  4. Be Astonished
  5. Tell About it
  6. Move Somebody

Lemony Snicket collected some poems for Poetry Foundation that were not written for children but that children might like: All Good Slides are Slippery. Here’s the intro, which focuses on doors. I’m thinking about this as I ponder “the way in”:

“Knocks on the door”

Knocks on the door.
Who?
I sweep the dust of my loneliness
under the rug.
I arrange a smile
and open.
— Maram al-Massri
tr. by Khaled Mattawa

Doors

An open door says, “Come in.”
A shut door says, “Who are you?”
Shadows and ghosts go through shut doors.
If a door is shut and you want it shut,
why open it?
If a door is open and you want it open,
why shut it?
Doors forget but only doors know what it is
doors forget.
— Carl Sandburg

Starting to read something, such as a portfolio, is like opening a door, so I thought it would be interesting to start with two poems about doors written by two very different poets. Maram al-Massri is a Syrian woman who now lives in the city of Paris, France. Carl Sandburg is an American man who doesn’t live anywhere, due to death.

nov 7/RUN

5.25 miles
franklin loop
21 degrees/feels like 16

Getting colder. A few more layers: an extra pair of tights, a winter hat. I don’t remember breathing in the crisp, sharp air but I do remember seeing my shadow and the river through the forest. Smelled the sewer and wondered, how cold does it have to be before that stinky stench freezes–or does it smell more in the cold? My legs felt heavy and a bit sore. Forgot to check out the paved path down below in the east river flats. Thought I saw someone sitting under the railroad trestle on the east side but it could have just been a bush. On the east side, the trestle is much taller. Took a quick walk break on the final hill up past Meeker Dam because my right thigh was twinging occasionally. Saw some other runners, a mini peloton, some dogs and their humans. No Daily Walker or roller skiers or wild turkeys or eagles or coyotes or geese. Running back over the lake street bridge to the west river road, was dazzled by a single spot near the shore shining too bright in the sunlight.

It has been a while since I’ve seen my shadow. Where was she before today?

I Looked for Life and Did a Shadow See
BY JAMES GALVIN

Some little splinter
Of shadow purls
And weals down
The slewed stone
Chapel steps,
Slinks along
The riverrock wall
And disappears
Into the light.
Now ropy, riffled,
Now owlish, sere,
It smolders back
To sight beneath
A dwarfish, brindled tree
That chimes and sifts
And resurrects
In something’s sweet
And lethal breath.
This little shadow
Seems to know
(How can it know?
How can it not?)
Just when to flinch
Just where to loop and sag
And skitter down,
Just what to squirrel
And what to squander till
The light it lacks
Bleeds it back
And finds
My sleeping dark-haired girl —
O personal,
Impersonal,
Continual thrall —
And hammocks blue
In the hollows of her eyes.

nov 5/RUN

4 miles
marshall loop*
27 degrees

*west river road, north/lake st bridge/east river road, west/ cretin, north/marshall hill, east/marshall bridge/west river road, south

Windy, sunny, leafy, hilly. Checked out Shadow Falls Park as I ran above it on the east river road. With the leaves gone, I could see all the way down to the trickling creek. Noticed several inviting benches, perched on the edge of the bluff, but didn’t stop to sit or look out at the river. Felt a little stiff and sore in my legs. Passed the Daily Walker at the beginning of my run. Saw some dogs but no roller skiers or fat tires or geese. Did I see any squirrels?

Mindful/mary oliver

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It is what I was born for–
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world–
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant–
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these–
the untrimmable light,

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

nov 4/RUN

10K
franklin hill turn around
38 degrees/snow/rain

Before leaving, I checked the temperature. I checked the wind speed. But I didn’t check the chance of precipitation. Felt a few drops of liquid as I started my run but wasn’t worried. Then around mile 2 1/2 or 3, it started to snow/sleet/rain. I couldn’t really feel it on my face, so I didn’t care. It was pretty and wild looking, running under the bridge at the bottom of the hill and seeing the white suddenly stop, then start again after the bridge. I ran up the entire hill (all .4ish miles of it!), trying to keep myself relaxed by looking at the snow, smiling at the approaching cars and chanting about going slower to keep my heart rate lower. Encountered a gaggle of geese and lots of poop in the flats. Studied the river as it slowly moved south. Greeted the Daily Walker. Turned on my playlist when I reached the trestle for the last mile and a half. Don’t remember thinking about anything except my left knee hurts a little, then, my right thigh is tight, then, my side aches. Almost stopped to walk during my side cramp but then decided to slowly run down the hill instead. It only lasted a minute or two. A rare victory.

Found this great segment about a visual artist who visits the gorge at least twice a week and paints the beautiful trees. Love it! A Heritage of Trees Alison Price is an amazing artist. Here’s one from her Witnessing Waves series:

Almost forgot: a few days ago, I discovered that conspire not only means to scheme, but to breathe together. Nice–I love multiple meanings for words related to breathing (like inspiration, expiration). Also, while looking it up on merriam webster was struck by its second meaning: to act in harmony toward a common end. So many poetic possibilities! Today we–me and the welcoming oak trees and the slowly flowing river and the Daily Walker and the gathering geese and the airy amphitheater above the floodplain forest–conspired to make this morning more than mundane.

nov 1/RUN

7 miles
washington bridge turn around
35 degrees

A great run! Longest one I’ve done in over a year. Overcast, grayish brown. Felt warmer than 35 degrees. Greeted the Daily Walker. Smelled breakfast at longfellow grill up on lake street. Admired the river through the bare threes. Looked down at the gorge, over to St. Paul.

An Epiphany

As I looked over at the other side of the gorge–the east side and sometimes St. Paul, sometimes Minneapolis side–I suddenly understood something about why I like to see beyond the thickly thatched trees lining the bluff. The view is not just about seeing the forest floor and the river, it’s about seeing the other side. And seeing the other side is about possibilities, other perspectives, other/new ways of being, hope beyond this rutted reality, more than only this/here/now, the future, not really death but maybe a little about death, that which is not-me/not-I, outside of my self, beyond, beside, to where my mom was born and lived until she left for college [West St. Paul].

Loved running in the flats. Almost wanted to take the old stone steps up to riverside park but didn’t. Never have. I should some day. Listened to the water seeping and falling and gurgling. Thought about the mudslide a few years ago. Watched the water flowing fast, foaming, getting ready for ice. Decided that I’ll probably go faster if I incorporate a walk break into my 10K race. So glad I stopped at a porta-potty. So happy to have run for over an hour. I love November running. Pre-snow, post-leaf show. Heard some clanging and loud buzzing, almost like an alarm, but not quite. Saw a big boat on the river.

Eagle Poem
Joy Harjo – 1951-

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear,
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

How wonderful it is that Joy Harjo is the United States Poet Laureate right now! Her words are a beautiful gift.

oct 30/RUN

5.1 miles
franklin hill + winches trail
29 degrees

Ran north on the river road until I reached the bottom of the franklin hill. Reversed direction, running back up the hill. Took a set of wooden stairs down to the rusty red leaf-covered Winchell Trail. With reluctance, resorted to walking most of it–too risky to run…so many hidden roots and rocks and ruts! As I carefully hiked the steep rim, more and more of the railroad trestle revealed itself. I’ve never approached it from this angle. Returned to the paved path by the road after climbing another set of stairs right by the rickety, rotting split rail fence. Listened to the sounds around me. Rusty, rustling leaves, rooting rodents. What a racket! Ended my run by the 2 big rocks. Before leaving the river, remembered to stop at the overlook and then the ravine to absorb the roomy view.

Jotting down some notes about my run, I started to see lots of words that started with r. So I made a list and decided to create my entry around them. I didn’t use a dictionary, only words that I could think up on my own.

I don’t think I’ve posted this poem before. Love this idea of fall falling on us.

Fall
Edward Hirsch – 1950-

Fall, falling, fallen. That’s the way the season
Changes its tense in the long-haired maples
That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves
Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition
With the final remaining cardinals) and then
Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last
Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground.
At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees
In a season of odd, dusky congruences—a scarlet tanager
And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever
Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun
Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance,
A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud
Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything
Changes and moves in the split second between summer’s
Sprawling past and winter’s hard revision, one moment
Pulling out of the station according to schedule,
Another moment arriving on the next platform. It
Happens almost like clockwork: the leaves drift away
From their branches and gather slowly at our feet,
Sliding over our ankles, and the season begins moving
Around us even as its colorful weather moves us,
Even as it pulls us into its dusty, twilit pockets.
And every year there is a brief, startling moment
When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and
Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless
Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:
It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies;
It is the changing light of fall falling on us.