Happy first day of Spring! Many years it still feels like winter, but today it was SPRING! If I didn’t have to jump over a lumps of snow I wouldn’t have remembered it snowed almost a foot less than a week ago. Wonderful weather for a run — sun and not too much wind. I wore shorts, a short sleeved shirt and a lightweight pullover which I took off right before I turned around. For half the run, bare arms and bare legs!
a regular:Daddy Long Legs! As I ran back south, he greeted me, Hello again! Does he remember me from past years, or did he think he’d already seen me once today? (he’s done that before.) I’m choosing the believe he remembers me. I wonder if he has a name for me, like I do for him?
The ice on the surface of the river has melted. Down in the flats I was able to get close — only feet away — from the surface: some foam floating on the water moving slowly south.
holes
As I told RJP, I’ve hit the point in the process of these poems where I’m beginning to doubt myself and what I’m doing. Part of it, I explained to her, is because I dwell in the almost and struggle to find how to execute the final bit and/or give it the “polish” it needs. I’m not giving up. Instead, I’m trying a different approach: cut-outs. Would ths work better if the words were cut-out — a way to isolate them — instead of encased in holes? Can I do both? What if I had some of the words encased in the holes and some cut-out? Would that make it a little less complicated and less messy + easier to execute?
The question to return to again and again: what will serve the message/meaning/intentions of the poem?
4.3 miles minnehaha falls and back 44 degrees 10% puddles
Spring! Sun! Sharp shadows! Clear paths with far less puddles! I felt strong and satisifed and at ease in my body. Well, mostly at ease. Because it’s messy out by the gorge, I wore an old pair of shoes — the ones that don’t quite work. Sometimes my gait felt awkward, my feet not hitting the ground in the right spot or in the right way.
Marveled at the river’s surface as I ran above it. So beautiful with its frozen surface. In the past, I’ve described the surface as vast or barren or eerie, surreal or otherworldly, but today other words came to mind: still, frozen, fixed, unmoving, deadened, paused, suspended. Yes! I think these words better describe its strange beauty for me. Looking at it is like looking at a film still. Looking at it feels like everything is paused, suspended in time.
10 Things
gushing falls — I could hear their loud descent and see their white foam
looking down at the oak savanna, tall, slender, bare branches mixed with their shadows to make a mess of lines on the snow — how much of it was actual trees, how much shadow? I couldn’t tell
water dripping fast and strong over the limestone edges in the ravine at 42nd street
empty benches
a guy walking with a small dog and looking at his phone
someone biking near the falls playing some mellow music out of speakers
taking off my sweatshirt, running with bare arms, seeing a walker with bare arms too
sirens in the distance, a loud, sustained whistle
the walking trails are still covered in snow
the gutter that was gushing water yesterday now only has trickles
Off and on throughout the run, I recited Alice Oswald’s “The Story of Falling,” sometimes reciting it in my head, sometimes out loud.
Holes
I’ve mapped some more of Holes 4 and . . . it’s a lot. Will this just look like an ugly, jumbled mess? Yesterday, talking through this with Scott, he said something like, do what serves the poem and the meaning you are trying to convey (or the effect you are trying to achieve). In terms of meaning, the words of the first section of the poem are about what I see instead of a gaping hole: shimmering, fizzy, ephemeral or elusive (hard to see, fleeting) things: snow flake marble dust, seltzer fizz, a nothing that is something not sharing its secrets. Perhaps these ephemeral things have come loose from what bound them to “normal” sight and its monitoring through tests like the amsler grid; it’s where you dwell when normal sight is not longer possible. So maybe the unraveling occurs prior to this hole? Yes, the unraveling (and vision of amsler grid as broken strings happens in 2 and 3, Does that mean that Holes 4 is all disconnected free-floating words/phrases? If so, how to make it possible for others to read it? I could place the poem near the center, around the gaping hole. I could also number the pages/sections and mark each word with a page number? Yes, I like this!
And hours later, I’m thinking more of using a distorted Amsler Grid at the center of Holes 4, and the black hole that the grid is collapsing into is the shape of blind spot.
Another mini project: can I learn how to draw decent-enough eyeballs — pupil and iris only?
amsler ideavery rough eyepoem text
Get Out ICE
This flyer about the next No Kings march came up on Facebook from Minnesota’s Lt. Gov Peggy Flanagan (and hopefully our next governor?!):
“In Minnesota, we’ve seen the federal government at its worst — and showed the world how to fight back.
Now, I’m honored that the flagship No Kings protest will be held here in the Twin Cities. Together, we’ll show Donald Trump that we don’t do kings.”
NO KINGS TWIN CITIES VOL. 3. Joan Baex Jane Fonda Maggie Rogers. March 28, 12 pm. March then rally at the State Capital.
4.3 miles minnehaha park and back 43 degrees 25% puddles
Yesterday it was very cold. Today it is warmer, the sun is out, and everything is melting! Drip drip drips everywhere, very LOUD whooshing car wheels, puddles. At the start of the run, I wondered how long it would take before at least one of my socks would get soaked. Not long! I only made it a quarter of a mile before stepping in a big puddle. Oh well, it dried out pretty fast.
overheard: one runner to another as they encountered each other on puddly double bridge — take it easy my brother
Kids laughing and yelling on the playground; a pack of runners; the falls, gushing, a few sirens; the river with a thin sheet of gray ice looking wide and barren. Can you see it through the trees?
river view from the 38th street steps / 18 march
On my walk back home, I stopped to take some video of water dripping out of gutter. Unfortunately because of the bright light I accidentally hit slow mo so you can’t hear the wonderful dripping sound. Here’s a brief clip of it anyway:
water dripping in accidental slow mo
HOLES
Yesterday afternoon, after finishing mapping all of my word (drawing boxes around them, encasing them in circles or the shape of my blind spot) and feeling like something was missing, I had an idea: I should place the Amsler grid somewhere on the pages. I didn’t want to simply cut out a printed version of the grid and completely cover the words. What about drawing the grid on top of the words? Too difficult with my terrible vision! Then, a new idea: cut out a hole the size/form of Amsler grid’s shape (4 x 4 in) and use string as the lines for the grid. After some playing around with it, another idea: not string, but thread or wire, and make the grid broken, distorted, emerging from the hole, looking somewhat like broken guitar strings. Three of the strings will extend out across the pages, offering the path of the three sentences of the poem. A variation: create three grids, with each one corresponding to a different sentence. This idea, which I hope I can execute because I really like it, led me to think about adding an Amsler grid to all of the holes. On Holes 1 it would be the “normal” grid with my blind spot on it. I have to think more about how it would look in Holes 2 and 3. By Holes 4, it’s broken.
If you google “distorted Amsler grid” you can find some great images of warped lines and black holes caving in upon themselves. Due to risk of copyright infringement, I won’t post any, but here’s a link to one that I particularly like:
Amsler grid distorted image: the image is at the bottom of the page. It is of the grid with the outer lines appearing normal. Near the center the lines are wavy, collapsing into a big black spot in the very middle.
Some things to think about today (I’m writing this paragraph just before 10 am):
how do I map the words in Holes 1, 2, and 3?
where do I place the Amsler grids in Holes 2 and 3, and what will that look like?
will there only be 4 Holes, or should there be more? If more, should I place them before or after Holes 4 in terms of the progression of the grid’s distortion?
Another thing that happened yesterday: I remembered that I had a large amount of oil pastels, leftovers from RJP’s obsession with them more than 10 years ago. Could I use them to color/fill in my holes? How do you use oil pastels?1
It is now 5:20 pm and I’ve spent part of the day trying something new with Holes 4. I’m using uncooked spaghetti to connect/map the words of the poem. It’s a complicated challenge, but the spaghetti is helping to visualize it more effectively.
more thoughts/questions:
should I split this poem into 4 instead of 3 segments?
should there be separate amsler grids for each section, or one grid from which different colored threads emerge and travel to the three or four different sections? if there is only one grid, should it be in the very center of the piece?
should the grid be just an open hole, with no evidence of a grid, just black netting and threads or wires or yarn emerging from the hole (I like wire, but is it too difficult to work with?) OR should part of the grid still remain — some white, some “normal” lines, then a hole?
a further thought with that last question: what if the holes (1, 2,3, and 4) documented the unraveling of the amsler grid, with it intact in Holes 1, then less intact in Holes 2 and 3, until it is gone and with broken wires in Holes 4? I love this idea; can I figure out a way to execute it?
returning to the thread/wire — will it work to have it stitched into the paper, where sometimes it is on the front, sometimes emerging from the back side through another hole? is this too messy and complicated? do I need to cut back on the poem, to reduce its number of words?2
I don’t want to cut any words, but it would make this easier — do I want it to be easier? Not really! ↩︎
Get Out ICE: It’s never too late to do the right thing. . . .
is something people were chanting and singing at hotels where ICE agents were staying this winter. I think it also fits as a way to describe this:
A reporter for NBC interviewed people at a gas station in a previously very pro-Trump county in Pennsylvania. Three people still support Trump, one does not. Responding to the reporter’s question, “If you could say something to President Trump and he could hear you right now, what would it be?”
“3 times! That was my bad, apparently I’m an idiot”
2.3 river road, south / lena smith boulevard, north 15 degrees / feels like 0 50% snow-covered
Many of the sidewalks were completely bare and dry, almost all of the trail was covered in slick snow. In some stretches, the trail was covered with chunks of snow from the snow plows that had just passed by. Running south, with the sun and the wind at my back, and on the short strips of bare pavement, it felt good. Then I ran through a puddle. I didn’t notice that my foot was soaked for several minutes, but when I did I decided I should head home; it was cold enough that I was (mildly) concerned for my wet toes. Good call, past Sara! When I got home, one of my toes was burning.
10 Things
bright BLUE sky
the sounds of shoveling and scraping and snow-blowing all around
at the end of each block, I encountered an almost knee-high wall of snow where the plow had come through
the surface of the river looked eerie and strange, pale and spotted with chunks of ice
no kids’ voices from the school playground: for preK – 5th graders, school was closed, for 6th – 12th graders e-learning — that would suck! give the big kids a snow day too, I say!
the rumble of two plows approaching, first a small one, then BIG one — I moved to the far side to avoid the spray of snow
I encountered a few other runners but no skiers or bikers
head north, I ran into a wall of wind — ugh! howling and biting
I bet it was pretty and looked very winter wonderland-y — I couldn’t tell you because I was too busy trying not to slip!
if it hadn’t been for the terrible wind, my wet toes, and the slick and uneven path, it would have been a great run — even with the bad conditions, I had some wonderful moments outside
mind-body connection
On last week’s episode of the podcast Nobody Asked Us, Kara Goucher talked about how she started taking a low dose of some (unnamed) anti-anxiety medication and it’s helping with her dystonia (“a movement disorder that causes the muscles to contract. This can cause twisting motions or other movements that happen repeatedly and that aren’t under the person’s control” — Mayo Clinic). She has discussed many times on the podcast how dystonia has made it very difficult for her to run, especially on pavement.
mind body connection — watch until 15:58
This mind-body connection is fascinating to me. Does her anti-anxiety med just make her more relaxed, or does it do something more to the brain — and maybe the neural mapping of her movements?
HOLES 4
Today I’m mapping my words on a copy of the “Still Life” article. I”m trying something different. In Holes 1, 2, and 3, I taped the paper together first and then found the words and drew the holes over and around the words. Today, with such a long article, I’m finding the words and drawing holes around them first, before I tape the pieces together. Will that make a difference? Not sure, but I might switch around the order of the pages to shape how the holes look together.
I drew and colored in holes on 3 out of the 8 pages, and tried adding some color to a few. I’m wondering if some of the holes should messier, with less defined borders or jagged, rough. I have limited ability in drawing; can I push myself some more? Here’s an image of one of the pages:
One last run on clear paths before it snows tonight. The forecast predicts more than a foot of snow tonight. It will probably melt fast, which will be as much as more of a nightmare than the actual snow. Walls of snow, then mush, then jagged ice, then little lakes and puddles. Oh well, I bet it will be pretty and I might get to see someone skiing down the street!
Today’s run was good. My left knee was a bit stiff and grumbly, but otherwise I felt good. In the last mile I started to feel relaxed, with my legs and arms and the space around me in sync. I was moving through the air, hardly noticing when my feet touched down — the space between beats! I love when I run like this!
10 Things
honk honk honk honking geese all around the gorge, 1: down the hill, under the ford bridge, a lone geese floating in the middle of the river
geese, 2: I heard their honks first, behind me, then beside me, then in front of me — finally saw them: 2 geese flying low
overheard: one runner to another: it didn’t even taste like salmon!
the bells of st. thomas
someone in an bright orange jacket down below, on the stretch of the winchell trail that I call the edge of the world
the river surface below the ford bridge was dotted with bright white slabs of ice — a strange sight; I wish I would have brought my phone today to take a picture!
an empty parking lot at the locks and dam
empty benches
traces of snow in the grass
a laughing pileated woodpecker
HOLES
Flipping through my past New Yorkers, I found an article from the 9 june 2025 issue that looks promising. It’s called “Still Life” in the print issue and “Greenwood Cemetery’s Living Dead” in the online version. The only test for whether I can use it or not: it must have at least one use of the word hole, or of a word that contains hole. This is a long article, so I’d hope there’s at least one hole, but is there? Yes, 4!
Medina extended a tape measure into the hole and said, “Six-ten.”
Usmanov and I stared down into the gaping hole, its walls marbled with grass roots.
went to Green-Wood almost every day for weeks this spring, and the most unnerving thing I saw was an enormous hunched figure, wearing a cloak, with a gaping hole for a face.
Scientists were only starting to piece together that contaminated water, not flawed character, caused cholera; that smallpox probably originated in rodents;
I’m surprised that an article about a cemetery only has 4 mentions of holes. Isn’t a cemetery more than half holes?!
some notes as I read through the article:
One, I am reading it backwards, section by section. Two, one rule in the cemetery: no skylarking. I looked it up, skylarking is frolicking and playing jokes on others. It’s also the name of one of my favorite XTC albums. Three, reading the text, which I’ve put in a pages document, I’m noticing a few things about the text: the text surrounding the word or phrase that I can see sometimes looks like it is scribbled out. Sometimes it looks like it has sparkles around it that are moving — not quite flashing. The text always seems to be vibrating. How can I translate that into a texture on my blind spot Four, as I read through the sections, I jotted down words or phrases that stood out to me:
entrance flaming torch welcoming appears mirror ink you’re never alone you’re never disconnected love full of little secrets inhabit center recreate experience remaining time offer everyone gently between seeing moment you look at space, you look at background, you look at sky hope visit already thinking I don’t know why there was room about to open up turn and follow her gaze staring hands waste bigger picture across threshold neglect and care art cone cell
heart needed landscape fizz snow flake marble dust seltzer balance fills up keeps the grass space enough out of the water upkeep grounds public spaces essentail failed possible efficiency requires can stand on a sidewalk people who never look up out of room true mapping crevice easy circular elipses inside walls outside dark happen here nothing pale-blue cluttered wasn’t a place searched
certainunmarked is now used other-siders skylarking exhume make when you see in place of a road the word down through the plywood a plank settling glacial till earth inches from a layer of turf dirt unstratified jumble of sands, cobbles, and clays caves in on itself all-weather like a bird bench what do you want stone slabs a door uncut grave terrain geologically life this is a place to inter the dead no good place to put all the boies walked around faces believing piece together rotting disease inspired crowded
By the way, as I write, the snow has started. We officially have a blizzard warning that begins around 10 pm and lasts until Monday morning.
One of the reasons I picked this article is because I wanted more land language, like grass and dirt and dust and terrain and stone slabs and sands, cobblestones, clays, caves and glacial till. I want to connect the hole in my vision with the gorge — as a landscape, and a very big hole. I think of it as a powerful metaphor for my vision loss and what comes during and after. Of course, the gorge is also the actual place I go to for my writing practice.
The word plank stood out to me because of ED’s “I felt a funeral in my Brain” — and then a plank in reason broke/and I dropped down and down — I think of ED also with the stone slabs and the dark.
And, I like crevice and opened up, inside, outside, this is a place to inter the dead, room — a gaping hole, a threshold between,
I also like fizz and snow flake marble dust, which is what the words (and what I) sometimes feel like — fly, like a bird, sky — the words, cluttered, crowded and between walls
my eyes: a graveyard for dead cone cells
you look at space you look at sky you look at words and don’t see the gaping hole and its graveyard for dead cone cells you see snow flake marble dust seltzer fizz a nothing that is something
I’d like to keep going, but it’s time to get ready for Scott’s birthday dinner!
Ran over the lake street bridge and to the monument today. When was the last time I ran this route? Just checked, it was 5 nov 2025. Wow! Of course, part of the reason why I haven’t run over there is because of the winter; they don’t plow the sidewalk on the bridge, and St. Paul, where the monument is, doesn’t plow their trails as well as Minneapolis. But another reason is definitely ICE; I’ve been staying closer to home with my runs because it feels safer.
Today’s run was good; I felt (mostly) strong, although my legs/feet are sore from wearing the shoes that make them hurt. It was windy and cold on the bridge, but it was beautiful. Steel gray water, open and high enough to hide the sandbars. Scattered stretches of the east and west banks were glowing with white snow. The sun was dulled by a thin layer of clouds.
10 Things
drip drip drip drip — the steady drip of water falling off the bridge near the east steps
graffiti — pink and orange and black block letters under the bridge
I only encountered 1 or 2 people over the bridge, both walking
the bells of st. thomas chiming at noon! 15 minutes later, at 12:15
running above shadow falls I glimpsed a dark flash of something — a tree? no, a person
with several more glances I realized the person was not hiking but running
they were nearing the worn dirt trail that climbs up and out of the ravine
St. Paul has replaced the port-a-potty at the edge of the monument parking lot — there is much less graffiti on this new one, and the door closes all the way — hooray!
near the edge of an overlook on the east bank, staring out at the other bluff and down at the water — a hiker emerges
a plaque on the bench for, “what a woman” Sharon. She was born 2 weeks after my dad was in 1941 and died in 2002 — so young!
Holes
Currently, I have 3 Holes erasure poems. Holes 1 is about my uneasy fellowship with the word. Holes 2 is about how the hole (my blind spot) makes it unprofitable to have faith in the visible. And Holes 3 is about falling through the hole into “who knows where”, on the border between the real and surreal. I need to do at least one more hole about the small holdout-of-a-hole in the very center of my vision that enables me to still read (even if that reading is slow and sometimes unreliable).
Tomorrow, RJP and I go shopping for textiles and textures at the Stashery, so today I’m working on mapping out Holes 3. I’m using “Me, Myself, and I: Helen Oyeyemi’s Novel of Cognitive Dissonance” from The New Yorker, August 25, 2025. Here is the version I just drafted:
swap the dead-eyed liturgy of doomed vision with shadowed acts that leap for the light (OR flee from the light?)
read sentences sliced in half with strangeness each one glitch ing enough to let in the improbable
fall through the hole your reading eyes find / or your reading finds / or your eyes find and land in a logic of blur and almost
Is this too many words to easily/cleanly map out? Let’s find out! And if not, let’s shift the form to make it work! — several minutes pass — Okay, I mapped it, and it seems like too many words. I think I’ll save my “darling” — the line that started it all about swapping the dead-eyed liturgy for another project — a liturgy of shadowed acts and the periphery! Anyway, I’ll try to keep the rest of the poem, and figure out the rest of holes is a project tomorrow morning.
Get Out ICE and Ice
The other day I wondered when the ice would be gone from Lake Nokomis. This morning, Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board offered a prediction!
Minneapolis Parks Water Quality staff have tracked “ice off” dates on city lakes for decades. Ice off is declared when a lake is substantially free of ice after being fully frozen.
We’re probably not setting any records like 2018 or 2024, which dominate the record books. Staff estimate we could see ice off on small lakes like Powderhorn and Loring as soon as this weekend. It will probably be a few more weeks for larger lakes.
Will the HUGE winter storm we’re expecting on Saturday night and all day Sunday impact the ice off date? BTW, I’m pretty sure that they used to refer to this as the ice out date; I think they’ve changed it because of the very negative association with ICE. I checked past entries on my log, and yes, that was what it was called. Negative association aside, I like ice out better than ice off.
With the sun and the bare ground it felt warmer than 50 degrees, so I wore shorts! I started with long-sleeves, but by 2 miles, I shed that skin and ran the rest of the way with bare arms too. Ah, spring! Not the easiest run. It might have been because I didn’t wait long enough after my second breakfast/early lunch.
1
One of the best things about the run was heading south and admiring the river. Waves on the surface reflecting the light. A shimmer scene. Dazzling. I haven’t seen sun on open water like this for many months.
2
Since I’m thinking about holes and spots, which also means circles and loops, I thought about a playlist I made a year ago (25 march 2025), and decided to listen to it. Much of it is about seasons and cycles, but as I ran I thought about the hole inside the wheel and falling through it — into another dimension? another way of being? a space not consumed by the expected (normal) life? Then I thought about my growing blind spot and how it has cracked open “normal” life — this cracking can be painful and difficult, but it has offered new possibilities and an entrance to another way of being.
3
After stopping to put in my playlist, as I ran down the hill and away from the park, by right foot felt strange. Was there a rock in my tread? I finally stopped and looked. Not a rock, a hole in my shoe where my middle toes strikes down. I guess that proves it: I’m not a heel or mid-foot but a toe striker! Unlike the hole in my vision, I don’t really see an upside to this hole in my shoe — well, I guess it means I have get to buy new shoes, and, if any are still available, in a bright color!
minutes later: Done! My new Brooks Ghost 17s are dark blue, turquoise, and green!
a hole in my running shoe
I have never had a hole in the bottom of my running shoe. I’ve had holes on the side where my bunion/wide foot has pushed through, but never a hole on the bottom. I think it’s funny that this hole happened just as I’m thinking and writing about holes. I feel like I need to incorporate this hole into my project!
A Return to my Rabbit Recap
11 continued — 20 march 2026
sources of bunny inspiration: 1. rabbits who eat buckthorn bark may pee smurf blue; 2. identifying the dark forms in the backyard as rabbits; 3. origins of “bold as brass”; 4. optical illusion — duck or bunny; 5. a cup full of 3 rabbit breaths (poem); 6. jackrabbit trapped in a wildfire (poem); 7. the rock that is not a rabbit (poem); 8. little girls deciding who will have their bunny when they die (poem); 9. a rabbit offering themselves to quell a woman warrior’s hunger (book)
12 — 24 march 2026
Bunny as muse? nudge? pest? ghost?
What am I doing as I keep putting the two bunnies in my backyard into my poems? And why do I insistent on calling these wild and mature eastern cottonwood rabbits bunnies? I’m not sure these rabbits are indifferent to me, but I think they notice me in terms of whether or not I am a threat to their main activity: grazing in the grass.
A title for a poem? Crepuscular. Why don’t rabbits flee when I approach? Do they see me as non-threatening? Has human encroachment screwed up their sense of friend and foe? My mom, a pesky bunny, and a drive out the country. Peter Rabbit: the horror movie.
the rabbit hole:
“Down the rabbit hole” is an English-language idiom or trope which refers to getting deep into something, or ending up somewhere strange. Lewis Carroll introduced the phrase as the title for chapter one of his 1865 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, after which the term slowly entered the English vernacular. The term is usually used as a metaphor for distraction.[1] In the 21st century, the term has come to describe a person who gets lost in research or loses track of time while using the internet.wikipedia
Out-of-control curiosity. Distraction. Losing track of time. Getting lost in strange worlds. These are presented as bad things. Are they? Many of them are embraced within poetry. And they are great tools of refusal and resistance against late-capitalism and wannabe fascist governments — you’re not working for/perpetuating the system while you’re following the rabbit hole.
The rabbit hole online.
13 — 27 feb 2026
The rabbit hole. “Back to hole-less cottontails. A new metaphor is needed — not falling down and through to other worlds, but something about edges and shadows and the fringes — the periphery! Dwelling on the edges, in the corners, not traveling to new worlds, but noticing the other worlds that are already there, have always existed in the midst of my world.”
I want to think more about this shifting metaphor in my understanding and use of hole in my erasure poem (or poems?)
New Yorker Experiment #5
First, an update on Holes. There’s an empty space without text in the lower left corner. I’m thinking of putting a definition or a quote or a line there. Or, I could put my poem written out in a straightforward way in the space. Would that undercut of enhance the experience of reading the poem? The text could also be an explanation of my version of reading; peripheral — big picture / central — one word or small phrase at a time, often experienced in isolation.
I’ve started (just barely) working on experiment #5. I’m using an article from July 28, 2025 titled “The Whisker Wars.” All I’ve done so far is write down words that stood out to me on two out of the three pages. I want to try experimenting directly on the New Yorker pages so I have a decision to make: two of the pages are back to back, so I need to pick either the first or second page. I’ll read through both of them and see which one I like better.
Hmmm….there’s a cartoon on the second page with the caption, “That’s an area for creativity and unstructured play.” I might want to use a few of those words.
words/phrases the stand out, page 1:
portrait
a game of Now You See It, Now You Don’t
in the beginning, not a whisper
otherwise
drift like snow
wonder
notice
russet-and-gray
pewter-colored
abrupt shift
who left
entanglements
weirdness
yellow
bore a hole through the bottom (of my coffin)
still
page 2
traces
people saw it as separate (from the body)
replaced by a view
faith
framed
revealed
meanwhile
from
however
trends
norms
world all know / known
waves
an area for creativity and unstructured play
lies details
natural
rather
nothing
believe (rs)
teach you
visible
cut
choice
Get Out ICE
On 5 march 2026, NPR posted a story about how doctors and nurses in Minnesota have created an underground network of medical care for people who are too scared to leave their homes. “There are now about 150 doctors — a volunteer “rapid response” team that has made more than 135 home visits” (When ICE came, Minneapolis created underground health networks).
These members of the care network have helped women in labor, babies with the flu, “At the Faribault clinic where Carroll works, staff members deliver medicine, food and other necessities to patients. A staffer drives 12 middle and high school kids to and from school every day in a clinic van.”
2.5 miles 44th street parking lot and back 35 degrees
Ran in the afternoon. Colder today. I wore gloves and a headband to cover my ears. It felt harder, maybe I ran too soon after lunch?
It snowed last night. Not much — not even an inch, but enough to cover the grass and make everything glow white. By the time I went out for my run, the paths were clear.
omens of spring-to-come: someone was roller blading! Not roller skiing, but roller blading. And, a woman was running in shorts. It’s not unusual to see a man running in shorts during the winter, but it’s rare to see a woman. That usually doesn’t happen until it’s spring, or feels like spring, or is warm enough to be spring.
I was planning to finish my rabbit recap today, but then I started thinking about and experimenting with my holes poem. No time for the rabbits — well, except for several paragraphs below, when I realize that my naming of this poem, Holes (or hole?), is probably at least partly a reference to the rabbit hole!
New Yorker Experiment #4, continued
Today some part of me decided that we (the Saras) would offer a more detailed account of the process of thinking through my latest poem, so that’s what we’re doing.
I want to keep working on my fourth experiment. Yesterday afternoon, I printed out the New Yorker article, “A Screaming Skull,” and found my poem on its four pages. Then I taped the pages together and mapped the poem out. The theme: holes. I imagine it as part of a larger project about my blind spot. Maybe this project won’t be all erasure/found poems; I might try to connect it to some other work on the blind spot — work I’ve been doing for several years now, but haven’t quite figured out how to turn it into something. Yes! Experiment #3 — swap the dead-eyed liturgy of doomed vision with shadow (or shadowed?) acts, wild and improbable could connect with my study of JJJJJerome Ellis, the stutter, and his liturgy of the name! Very cool!
I took a picture of what I’ve done so far:
12
What to do next? The second image offers a possible approach: Applying my blind spot — the one I recently created by staring at a blank wall until it appeared, then tracing it — to each of the “found” words. I could sketch the blind spot directly on the page, around the word, OR I could place a cut-out version of the blind spot on top of the word. Maybe I’ll try a practice sketch. Another idea, which is probably definitely beyond my technical ability: create an animation of the process of reading this that starts with an overview of the poem, then zooms into the first word, encircled by the blind spot which appears as I read it. Then it moves to the next word/phrase, and the next, and the next until the poem is finished. I could also do it as a series of stills (instead of an animation). You could look at each one individually1, the image as a whole, and the series of images in a gallery.
I like this last idea! The focus on individual words — isolated from the other words and the meaning as a whole, which is how I read, because what’s left of my central vision is so small it can only fit a few words, and which is how I often (but not always) experience the world with my big blind spot — in isolation, and removed from others. A question: should I keep the larger poem as a square, stacked 2 x 2 pages? Or should I have it extend as 4 pages across? I can play around with it.
an hour or two later: Here’s something I tried with a paper cut-out of my blind spot as a template. I’m thinking I should ask Scott to make a sturdier, cardboard version of this template.
in progress / 1 PM / 7 march 2026
Something to think about: should I have the blind spots on the entire poem/map? I was going to write: no, because that’s not how I would see it; I would see a somewhat fuzzy version of the map of the poem. But this poem is not an accurate representation of how I see. I hardly ever see my blind spot as a gray blob. But the blind spot is there and it distorts how/what I see and I need to represent in some way that others can see too.
Another question: should I hand-sketch this poem, or figure out how to do it on the computer? I like the hand drawing — the material aspect of it + I can do it all myself — but drawing it by hand is messy and unreliable. I’m thinking that this series will be part of my vision art installation — along with my snellen charts and mood rings. It seems too messy if I don’t do it on a computer.
Also: how should the individual stills look? Should they be a close-up on that part of the poem, or just the word/phrase centered in an otherwise blank page? Should they include the blind ring? If I have more of the text, should it be too fuzzy/distorted to read, or should I have it surrounded by gray? Looking at the words on this screen, I see: 1 or 2, maybe 3 short words in focus, then other words too dim or fuzzy to read, and, after staring for a few seconds, a glowing dark ring around it. This ring is not solid or very dark, it’s almost gauzy, like a veil, or the feeling that there’s a ring there. Does that sound strange?
(rabbit) holes: Today I start a new volume of my Plague Notebook: vol. 28! I’m calling it, What about Epstein, Trump? As I was writing in it, describing my latest visual poem, Holes, a thought: Am I calling this holes (or hole?) partly because of my recent study of rabbit holes?! Maybe! And maybe I could bring rabbit holes into a poem about my blind spot!?
Get Out ICE
“Accountability in this case looks incredibly simple. Minnesota must investigate the violation of constitutional rights at the hands of Noem and her ICE agents and prosecute where appropriate. The best part about this process is that Trump can’t pardon state convictions.” Boom. (from a Occupy Democracy post, citing a MSNOW interview with Tim Walz)
While applying my blind spot to the phrase, “another word for,” I realized that that phrase was too big to fit inside the inner ring. So, that’s a new limit to how I can construct this, and other blind spot, poems: the phrases/lines must be able to fit within my blind spot. It wasn’t a big deal in this poem; I just took out the for from “another name for” and found it somewhere else in the article. ↩︎
3.5 miles locks and dam no. 1 48 degrees / drizzle
A few more warm days, then cold again. I didn’t mind the drizzle, everything was gray and soft and misty and wet. Dripping and whooshing and seeping. Of course, now that I’m home, the rain has stopped and the sun is almost out. I ran to the bottom of the locks and dam no. 1 hill and admired the ford bridge. It looked more like a painting than an actual bridge — although it sounded like a bridge, with trucks rumbling overhead!
I love the reflections in this picture I took, especially the upside down street lamps and railings.
If the sky were a little darker, the river a little lighter, you might not be able to tell which bridge is up, which is down — at least, I wouldn’t be able to tell!1
Smiled at several runners and walkers and bikers. Made note of all the empty benches and parking lots. There were not too many people out there. For the last bit of the run I was able to get deeper into the mist by running on the Winchell trail. Very haunted and other-worldly!
I listened to water for the first half of the run, and “Bunnies and Rabbits” playlist for the second. A new song popped up: Rabbit // Hole by Siddhartha Khosla. It’s part of teh music for a one-season series called Rabbit // Hole with Kiefer Sutherland. It’s a great song to run to. Near the beginning, the music breaks up for a few seconds then plays again then breaks up. I imagined a fast moving rabbit passing by an object when the music broke up, then being in the clear (when the music resumed), then passing my another object when the music broke up again.
Rabbit Recap, part 3
Can I finish this rabbit recap today? Nope. I got distracted with other stuff.
11 —20 feb 2026
All late fall and winter, 2 or more bunnies have been hanging out under our crab apple tree — at night, in the afternoon, at sunrise and sunset. They’re very bold, these bunnies, not running off when I walk by. When this happens, I’ve started saying, these bunnies are as bold as brass! Why? Not sure. And, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea: I like bunnies or rabbits about as much as I like squirrels, which is not at all.
Get Out ICE
Yesterday afternoon, Scott came to my desk n the front room and said, Do you want to hear some good news? I mean, some actual good news?Kristi Noem was fired!
from Needle & Skein (the red hat people)
As of March 5th, we have raised an incredible $705,000 to help our immigrant communities here in MN. This is just us. Other yarn shops in Minnesota and around the country have also raised money and generously donated both here and locally. ICE is still here. Our fight is not over. Join us.
If you are a business who has raised money, please send us a message. We would love to try and get a full picture of what the amazing fiber community worldwide has accomplished.
Read the comments for more on how the fiber arts community is showing up!
New Yorker experiment #5
These experiments are slow-going. I run out of time to work on them. I struggle to see what I’m doing. I’m messy and haven’t figured out how to work with glossy magazine paper. So why am I continuing these experiments? I asked that to Scott and FWA in the kitchen the other day and then answered it myself: For some reason, I2 want to do these erasures, so I’ll keep doing them until I don’t want to or can’t (because it is too hard with my bad vision).
a flash of an idea: As I was writing that last paragraph, I was thinking about how visual poetry is increasingly inaccessible to me as my few remaining cone cells die (are the dying or just malfunctioning?) Then this popped into my head: yesterday’s erasure involved using marker to cover almost the entire text. When I had FWA and RJP read it, they both got marker on their hands — not in big streaks, but in tiny marks that almost looked like cuts or scratches. What if I made these erasures about touch too? My first thought was about doing the erasure in such a way that created a residue. Second thought: what if these erasures involved texture and touch — here, I’m reminded of the kids’ book Pat the Bunny and its different textures to touch: the soft bunny fur, the rough bunny . . . nose? I can’t remember what was the rough thing in the book. If you can touch these erasures and their textures, which would somehow speak to the words/ideas on the page, maybe you can hear them too? I’m thinking of scales, and thick layers of paper, maybe some holes where the paper has been ripped open, some extra rough sections, some smooth, like a thin film, crinkly, soft, sharp-ish. And — maybe in terms of the visual aspect, find ways to cover it that reflect or glow or shimmer or sparkle. I can see these textures in a way that I can’t see the typical flat, black expanse of an erasure. So things like glitter, little mirrors, metallic surfaces, ridges. What about covering it with things that offer colors only visible in the light — thinking of bird feathers here. So many ideas! Again, difficult to execute without it looking like a mess, but fun to try.
Before I had that last flash of inspiration, I was thinking about how I’ve decided (as of yesterday) that the overarching theme of these found poems is my vision and how I see. Then I thought, I should apply my blind spot to these pages. Create an amsler grid out of the text, and then place a cut-out of my blind spot (found while starting at a blank wall and then drawing what I see) on top of the words to find the poem.
Maybe some of these erasures could be all/only about texture, some all/only about my blind spots, and some both. And just now, another thought: What if these erasures were all about my blind spot and the idea of blind spots? Would this work: one of the erasures could be covered in spots or dots or holes in the paper?
So many fun ideas to try. I imagine that some of them will only ever be ideas that are good in theory but don’t work on the page.
Oh — I almost forgot, until I looked over at an open tab that reads, “tools to use for magazine erasure poems,” I started writing about this experiment because I wanted to mention my need for better materials. I love how writing in this log opens me up and helps me to see new things to try! Before writing about textures, the supplies I thought I needed were: sharpies, an exacto knife (can I see well enough to use this?) and possibly paint. Texture through thicker and thinner layers of paint is an interesting idea. Now I’m thinking I need scraps of fabric — next week, RJP and I should go to the fabric scrap store at the Textile Museum! — that are soft and rough and bumpy and gauzy. I need glitter and sparkles and little things that reflect and crinkle. Fun!
Here’s a new version of experiment #3. I decided to paste the text into a document so I could have an easier time drawing on the text. Is this a good solution? I’m not sure, but I do like how this version looks:
swap the dead-eyed liturgy
Bummer. I just realized that I erased the ed on doomed. It is supposed to read: of doomed vision (I guess doom vision could work?).
text:
swap the dead-eyed liturgy of doom OR doomed3 vision with shadow acts wild and improbable
And now I’m redoing yesterday’s experiment:
text:
Another name for barely
not blind is a hole in your vision that makes for an uneasy fellowship with the world.
Both Scott and FWA could tell, but only after studying it for a minute. The giveaway: the waviness in the upside down version — in the streetlamps for FWA, the arch for Scott. I wouldn’t have been able to notice that because most lines/edges, if I can see them, look wavy! ↩︎
Who/what is the “I” here? Not the fully conscious Sara-I. I am not entirely sure why I keep returning to these erasures — either in this particular experiment, or in previous experiments — when they are so difficult with my vision and I’m not very good at them. Is it shadow Sara, nudging me? ↩︎
I prefer doomed vision; I think it works better. I really like this idea of challenging/getting rid of/swapping out a dead-eyed liturgy, where liturgy = “Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembrance, supplication, or repentance” (wikipedia). ↩︎
Still feeling like spring, another run with bare arms for the second half. Chirping birds, rushing falls, a knocking woodpecker. Kids on a field trip, walking on the river road trail. Only a few random clumps of snow remaining in the grass. I’m sure we will still get snow, either later this month, or in April, but it won’t stick around. Spring is coming!
I recited Alice Oswald’s “The Story of Falling” and Lisa Olstein’s “Dear One Absent This Long While.” I intended to think about my mom on her birthday, but I forgot to, or did I? I’m sure she was there when I recited — in my head — the last lines of Olstein’s poem: Your is the name the leaves chatter/at the edge of the unrabbited woods.
As I listened to the rushing falls, I recalled my discussion yesterday about the poster with the words, Believe Your Eyes. I thought more about why you should Believe Your Ears and Your Eyes, although less catchy, is more accurate. I recorded a thought into my phone:
5 march 2026
transcript: the sound of minnehaha falls and, occasionally, some wind. “I’m thinking about my poster and switching it from Believe Your Eyes, to Believe Your Ears and Your Eyes. And I’m thinking about, on their own, they’re both unreliable, but when they work together, and with the other senses, they offer a more accurate representation of what’s happening.”
Listened to the birds, my feet striking the grit on the path, someone say, I’m a classroom teacher near the overlook, the falls, sounding like a June rainstorm on the first half of my run. Listened to my “Bunnies and Rabbits” playlist on the second half. I started with “Rabbit Fur Coat,” and was struck by this verse:
She put a knife to her throat “”Hand over that rabbit fur coat”” When my ma refused, the girl kicked dirt on her blouse “”Stay away from my mansion house””
My mother really suffered for that Spent her life in a gold plated body cast.
This last bit about the gold plated body cast — what a great way to describe someone who is obsessed with objects, like gold or fur coats, that bring status and luxury.
Happy Birthday Mom
If she hadn’t died in 2009, my mom would be celebrating her 84th birthday today. 17 years gone. Some memories of her have softened, lost their edges, others have been condensed into a flash or a few words. I was reminded of some of those words the other day when I heard Heather Cox Richardson say, oopsie poopsies. As I remember it, Mom was driving me and my best friend (JO) home. When we pulled into the garage, she called out, Front door service, Missy Doodles! I can’t remember our reaction in that moment — did JO and I exchange looks? did we laugh at her? — but I do remember that it became something we repeated to each other later for a laugh and as a way to mock my mom (mostly good-naturedly, I think).
Why does this dumb sentence stick, when others don’t? Maybe it’s partly because my mom often had a strange way of saying things — happy as a clam bake is another one that comes to mind; also, the way she pronounced absurd — abzurd — and milk — melk (I do that one too). There must be many more that I’m not remembering now; I should ask my sisters. These strange ways of speaking were part of her charm. Front door service, MissyDoodles fits with these others. I googled it just now, thinking it might be a famous catch-phrase from before my time, or that Missy Doodles might have been a character on some show from the 50s or 60s. Nope.
Returning to HCR’s oopsie poopsies, I’m thinking about how she uses it instead of swearing.1 Another connection to my mom surfaces: not swearing, or rarely swearing, or swearing in French or German. And now I’m thinking about her shit rock, which is now my shit rock. I created a digital story about it 10 or so years ago. I also posted about it on my TROUBLE blog. I need to find the video and a transcript of the story somewhere on a hard drive. I’ll post it when I find it.
the Rabbit Recap continues
Yesterday, working backwards, I made it through page 5, page 4, and half of page 3 of entries tagged, rabbit.
6 — 15 nov 2022
The optical illusion: the rabbit or the duck
I surmise that my general visual experience is something like your experience of optical illusions. Open any college psychology textbook to the chapter on perception and look at the optical illusions there. You stare at the image and see it change before your eyes. In one image, you many see first a vase and then two faces in profile. In another, you see first a rabbit then a duck. These images deceive you because they give your brain inadequate or contradictory information. In the first case, your brain tries to determine which part of the image represents the background. In the second case, your brain tries to to group the lines of hte sketch together into a meaningful picture. In both cases there are two equally possible solutions to the visual riddle, so your brain switches from one to the other, and you have the uncanny sensation of “seeing” the image change. When there’s not much to go — no design on the vase, no features on the faces, no feathers, no fur — the brain makes an educated guess.
When I stare at an object I can almost feel my brain making such guesses.
Sight Unseen / Georgina Kleege
7 — 27 sept 2022
Those who have it to give are like cardinals in the snow. So easy and beautifully lit. Some are rabbits. Hard to see except for those who would prey upon them: all that softness and quaking and blood. (I’ve Been Thinking about Love Again/ Vievee Francis)
rabbits — visible only to those who prey upon them — all that softness and quaking and blood.
8 — 1 dec 2021
You only spot the rabbit’s ears and tail:
when it moves, you locate it against speckled gravel, but when it stops, it blends in again; (First Snow / Arthur Sze)
So, does a bunny have two distinctive aspects to their form: ears and tail? Ears if it’s only the head, ears and tail if it’s the entire silhouette. Most things blend into the backyard if they’re still for me. I only see them by their movement and maybe the flash of a tail streaking away.
9 — 25 dec 2025
A child’s plush stuffed rabbit. (Ode to Gray / Dorianne Laux)
Why are stuffed animal toy bunnies usually gray when real rabbits are more often brown?
10 — 15 may 2025
“It suggests the fatal indecision of a rabbit caught in a hunter’s flashlight. . . .” Rabbits as prey, always needing a way to be escape, when cornered, they shut down. Survival strategy: run until you can’t then go stiff, play dead. The idea of always looking for an exit resonates for me. I would much rather avoid a bad/dangerous/uncomfortable situation than confront it. Wherever I go, I always look for the exits, or the entrances into other worlds.
And now I’m wondering about rabbits playing dead and how that works. According to a few different sites, it’s called tonic immobility or trancing and it is”
a behavioural response to a perceived threat, characterised by muscular rigidity, profound motor inhibition, and suppressed vocal behaviour. This behaviour occurs when freezing in response to a predator approach, fight, or flight are no longer perceived as options (Gallup 1974, Gallup 1977). McBride et al. (2006) observed that rabbits held in a tonic immobility position had elevated respiratory rates, heart rates, and plasma corticosterone concentration. Additionally, they expressed fear behaviours such as widened eyes and flattened ears, and demonstrated more hiding behaviours and fewer grooming behaviours post-trancing.
In yesterday’s Politics Chat, talking about her reaction to the news that Trump was bombing Iran, she said, “I said all the swear words you never think I say.” ↩︎
Get Out ICE
From Recovery Bike Shop in Northeast Minneapolis:
This is what community looks like. This is what “bustling” looks like. This is looking out for our neighbors. This is taking care of our own. This is supporting our city.
We feel safer when other people are around. We are those people. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. And when we make our street a place that’s comfortable for walking, more people will feel comfortable walking. It’s a virtuous cycle. And it’s something we can do.
So come walk with us every Thursday evening at 5:30. Meet at Recovery Bike Shop. (And next week we’ll be walking in the sun!)
Note: any time you are out walking, you are making your community safer.
Any time you are out walking, you are making your community safer. I love this idea!
New Yorker Experiment #4
But before I move onto #4, I added some numbers to #3, so it was easier to follow the path of the poem:
Experiment #4: A Screaming Skull / New Yorker 18 august 2025
text:
You may feel like a shadow.
Another name for blind is a hole in the vision
You may feel like a shadow.
I tried photocopying the pages from the New Yorker, but the quality is terrible. Also, I ran out of time. I like the idea of another name for blind is . . . but I could find the right words to fill that in. I’ll work on this one more tomorrow. I think that my theme for these is my vision.
