Tag: poem

oct 29/RUN

4.5 miles
veterans home in reverse
49 degrees

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

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

It/ Gertrude Sturdle

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

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

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

version 1

EA Poe’s original first verse:

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

My version

Feel the leaving of the cells —
the failed cells.

What a world of loneliness their abandonment foretells.

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

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

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

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

tinkle / oversprinkle / twinkle

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

cells: dead cone cells

cells / foretells / spells

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

oct 22/RUN

3.1 miles
2 trails
44 degrees

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

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

Began chanting: looping and/looping and/looping again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Richard Siken!!

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

The List/ Richard Siken

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

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

Describing 
worlds is

easier 
than find

ing your place 
in them

OR

Describing
worlds is

easy. Find
ing your

place in them
is hard.

oct 9/RUN

3.6 miles
bottom of locks and dam no. 1
48 degrees

Another cool morning! Today, I glowed: a bright orange sweatshirt, bright blue running shorts with lighter blue swirls, bright yellow running shoes, a purple-pink-blue running hat. Did it make me run faster? Maybe. I felt much better on the run this morning. Was it because I didn’t have any unfinished business, or because I was going only about half the distance? Or a little bit of both? I ran south and recited part of my new You Are Here poem about the grassy boulevard. I like it.

10 Things

  1. red leaves
  2. the occasional thump of an acorn hitting the ground
  3. the loud rumble of a school bus approaching Dowling
  4. scales on the river near the locks and dam — no clear reflection of the bridge today, instead more of an impressionist painting of it
  5. the bridge in the 44th street parking lot was empty, so was the one near folwell
  6. a dog’s bark, deep and loud, in the trees near Becketwood
  7. more golden light through the trees
  8. heading north, descending on the path that dips below the road, seeing a big but not the trail — hidden behind leaves
  9. the bench at the edge of the world: empty
  10. a buoy (not orange) bobbing in the river under the ford bridge

Listened to cars and dogs as I ran south. Put in “Taylor Swift” essentials retuning north.

Since I wrote about the grassy boulevard this morning, and being alone, and freedom, here’s a fitting poem:

Grass, 1967/ Victoria Chang

When I open the door, I smile and wave to people who only
have eyes and who are infinitely joyful. I see my children,
but only the backs of their heads. When they turn around, I
don’t recognize them. They once had mouths but now only
have eyes. I want to leave the room but when I do, I am
outside, and everyone else is inside. So next time, I open the
door and stay inside. But then everyone is outside. Agnes
said that solitude and freedom are the same. My solitude is
like the grass. I become so aware of its presence that it too
begins to feel like an audience. Sometimes my solitude grabs
my phone and takes a selfie, posts it somewhere for others
to see and like. Sometimes people comment on how
beautiful my solitude is and sometimes my solitude replies
with a heart. It begins to follow the accounts of solitudes
that are half its age. What if my solitude is depressed? What
if even my solitude doesn’t want to be alone?

Chang’s version of solitude involves being watched, stared at, judged and assessed, evaluated. And it involves a distance created with eyes and staring and being on display. My solitude, or maybe my loneliness, involves a lack of seeing — not of being seen, but of seeing when I’m being seen.

oct 4/RUN

3.25 miles
2 trails + ravine
72 degrees
dew point: 62

8:30 in the morning and 72? Ugh. I’m glad it’s cooling down on Monday. My IT band felt strange for the first few minutes, but after that I forgot about it.

10 Things

  1. noticed the difference in drips at the 2 ledges — one concrete, one limestone — in the ravine between the 35th and 36th street parking lots — the concrete ledge, which was higher up, dripped less and slower
  2. a greeting from Mr. Morning!
  3. a peloton — 2 dozen bikers? — on the bike path
  4. not much yellow, but lots of red and orange
  5. the Winchell Trail was muddy parts — when did it rain?
  6. almost running into a walker, thinking that I was coming up behind them instead of them coming towards me — sometimes I can’t tell when someone is facing me or turned away
  7. the trail through the oak savanna: only a swirl of leaves and mulch
  8. a little more of a view at the edge of the world and the folwell bench
  9. a thick haze, trapped in the oaks in the savanna
  10. the surface of the river burning white
the surface of the river burning through the trees / Rachel Dow Memorial Bench

I decided to take a video of the river instead of a photo; I wanted to capture the movement of the light on the surface.

for future Sara: Ran past a house all gussied up for Halloween on 34th near Seven Oaks. A figure in black leaning over the fence, graves and skeletons in the front yard. I need to walk by here at night.

Listened to water trickling and voices below for the 2.5 miles of the run. Put in Taylor Swift’s new album for the last bit.

excerpt from Karma Affirmation Cistern Don’t Be Afraid Keep Going Toward the Horror / Gabrielle Calvocoressi

it’s okay. To know you’re part craven smuggler.
Part thief. Maybe if you know your animal.
I mean really know your animal.
You won’t become a builder of factories
or slave ships. Maybe instead of building
a ship somewhere in your body
you just let yourself feel the pain and
humiliation. No need to make it beautiful
for some future reader. Just say how much
you wanted to hurt someone like you got hurt.
And then just watch that for a while. It’s okay
to feel horribly ashamed. Best not to look away.
The gate to joy is past the factory and past
the reader and maybe it’s past your last breath
on this planet. There’s nothing you can do about it.
You come from the cistern of brutality
and hunger. You are the resonator. Just breathe.

Best not to look away. Wow! On the Poetry Foundation site, the poet reads this poem and they do a great job.

oct 2/RUN

5.3 miles
ford loop
64 degrees

Felt strange when I started my run and wasn’t sure how much I would be able to do. Ended up doing the ford loop. What a morning! Still too warm, but lots of color and sparkles and golden light. My left knee continues to feel strange before I start and during the first mile, like a rubber band is crossing over the kneecap. Is that a tendon or a ligament? No, looked it up: IT Band. It doesn’t hurt at all.

IT Band? Guess it’s time for some more fun with medical terms!

IT, the Halloween version: Stephen King’s IT

  • Stephen King’s Inconsistent Talent
  • Stephen King’s Iffy Takes
  • Stephen King’s Incandescent Tadpoles
  • Stephen King’s Insatiable Teacup
  • Stephen King’s Indigo Trash
  • Stephen King’s Iconic Terror
  • Stephen King’s Inedible Treats
  • Stephen King’s Irritated Throat
  • Stephen King’s Itemized Tally

My IT Band is already feeling better!

Running past the Horace Cleveland Overlook, stopping to fix my headphones, I noticed the river through the trees. Wow — a shimmering, sizzling white. Smelled something sour just south of the Monument. Heard a roller skier. Saw 5 or 6 single rowing shells on the water, encircling the coxswain’s boat below the Lake Street bridge. Greeted several people — runners and walkers. Stepped on dead leaves on the ground. Heard the St. Thomas bells and water tinkling at Shadow Falls.

Another great poem on poets.org this morning. Here are a few lines:

excerpt from This Is Not a Horse/ Blas Falconer

A hoof implies the presence of
the whole horse. A saddle implies

a horse and a rider.

How much information do we need to recognize/identify a form? Only a hoof? The curve of a back? A giant eye?

Earlier this morning, working on Girl Ghost Gorge and the idea of restlessness, I wrote:

worn out / exhausted / made still
worn down / eroded / exposed
worn in / familiar / used

worn in = an accumulation of experiences, having a context, a history, a substance/substantial presence, lasting through time, enduring

oct 1/RUN

4.2 miles
minnehaha falls and back
67 degrees

A good run! I felt strong and relaxed and able to run farther without needing to stop for a walk break. More color on the trees today, lots of orange and red, not as much yellow.

10 Things

  1. workers in bright yellow vests at the Cleveland Overlook next to a big white truck with a long arm and a bucket — trimming trees?
  2. slashes of orange everywhere, not big stretches of it, only a dot here, a dot there
  3. a fine, cool spray coming off of the falls
  4. the smell of fried something at the falls — Sea Salt?
  5. chickadeedeedeedee
  6. kids laughing and yelling on a playground hidden behind trees
  7. a woman walking over to a man near the ledge etched with “The Song of Hiawatha,” saying, I like it here
  8. that tall grass smell that reminds me of cilantro, almost — the common thread: the smell of freshness? and green?
  9. the dirt trail that winds through the small wood near the ford bridge looked muddy
  10. a roller skier on the trail — I don’t remember the click clack sound of his poles, just the fast swinging of his arms as he propelled himself forward

As I ran, I thought about water and erosion and how that might translate into a new form and/or way to play around with my already existing poems. I had a few ideas:

  • water as causing cracks, fissures, splitting words open. New breaks in the lines, in individual words? Making new words out of the already existing ones?
  • water as swirling and falling. A mixing and swirling and wheeling of words?
  • water as wearing down, peeling away layers, condensing forms to their essence

Read (and heard) an amazing poem this morning:

A Bookshelf/ Hua Xi

My father read a mountain aloud.

Opened to a page
where a green bird lands on a thunderclap.

Named for the billowing hands of
brittle blue flowers.

As if the unfinished poetry of the paraffin

is pulled aside like scenery,
so that I may write by the only light I know.

My father read only his one life and recited
the last line over and over.

The book is written in giant letters of fog
that wander like goats across the alpine pastures.

The moon is dog-eared as if the treetops looking up
have studied the idea of love too much.

On a page with some scattered pine needles,
a voice goes on calling out to me.

My father learned to read
in a one-room schoolhouse,

and never read a poem.

A little herd of lightning
gets spoken out loud in the dark.

Change
is scenic and sudden.

One year, I came home
and all the leaves fell off my father.

After that,
he was winter.

I’m thinking about a poem as a life and those last lines about her father and how he became winter. Wow.

sept 25/RUN

5 miles
franklin loop
62 degrees
humidity: 80%

Not an easy run, but I kept going and was happy to be outside, above the gorge, for almost an hour. Some walking, more running. Was able to greet Dave, the Daily Walker. Noticed something sticking out in the middle of the river as I ran across the lake street bridge. People swimming across? No, tree branches stuck on the sandbar. The bridge steps were wet. Not rain, but a hose?

3 moments of color

1

Running across the Lake Street bridge, looking out through the railing, pink. Someone had spray-painted the railing with a thin line of bright pink, maybe bright green too, or was that my bad vision? Or maybe the bright sunlight doing strange things? Whatever it was, it looked magical.

2

Descending into the tunnel of trees from the north, a pool of reddish-orange light ahead of me. A wildfire sun? No, reflections from some orange paint on a nearby tree and red leaves on the ground.

3

Again on the lake street bridge: a very bright circle of light on the water, silver with streaks of orange, or an orange tone? or the idea of orange?

Found a powerful poem on Poetry Daily this morning, Schrödinger/ Katie Erbs.

excerpt from Schrödinger/ Katie Erbs

a little thought experiment
gone sideways an idea
trapped in ovum
the cedar chest the bride suffocates in
the refrigerator’s magnetic closure invented only
after one too many kids
got trapped inside leaving
little claw marks on the insides
of little coffins how I dreamed
of the little bell to ring
from inside the box
to let everyone know
I’m alive inside still

Just yesterday, I was reading a novel, Victorian Psycho, that mentioned these bells in coffins. I don’t think I had ever heard of them before.

I am convinced I can hear bells — the bells that chime from inside the safety coffins in the Hopefernon churchyard. ‘To ensure one isn’t buried alive,’ explained the Reverend when I first remarked upon them as a child. ‘They can only be rung from inside the coffin.’

‘But I hear them at night,’ I had told him, and the Reverend had sighed and shaken his face full of wrinkles . . . .

Victorian Psycho/ Virginia Feito

sept 6/RUN

5.1 miles
bottom of franklin and back
53 degrees

Another cooler run. Shorts with my bright orange sweatshirt. Ran to the bottom of the franklin hill before I stopped to walk and use one of the few port-a-potties on the route. There used to be at least one more under the lake street bridge, but they removed it. Chanted in triple berries to keep steady and distracted, or focused, depending on your perspective.

Listened to rowers and a beeping bike that I thought might be a bird before I saw it and striking feet, all around. Lots of runners out there this late morning. Listened to my “Moment” playlist once I started running again. It started with U2’s “Stuck in the Moment” and I thought about my latest insomnia rut.

10 Things

  1. a greeting from Dave, the Daily Walker: Happy 100 days after your birthday! Dave is the best — well, maybe not with his math!
  2. dark and green in the tunnel of trees, a circle of faint light up on the hill
  3. at least one yellowish orangish tree
  4. down in the flats the river’s surface was laced with grayish-white foam
  5. someone sitting on the sliding bench as I ran north, their bike propped behind the back of the bench
  6. returning south, the sliding bench was empty so I stood behind it and assessed the crumbling hill and the block view of the white sands beach
  7. finally took the dirt path that cuts behind some benches just south of the trestle
  8. 2 people walking 2 dogs, one person saying to the other something about an unwalked dog needing to be walked
  9. 2 women walking in the flats, one of them to the other: It’s by Ann Patchett. I wish I would have written down the passage.
  10. running on the north double bridge — just past the old stone steps — something caught my eye on the fence. On the way back, I remembered to stop to check it out. A small cut-out of Frump’s head on a popsicle stick with a caption: ‘tator on a stick. I took a picture, but decided not to post it*

*it took me a minute to understand fully the meaning here — at first I was thinking of the state fair, but finally it hit me that tator = dictator. Memories of reading Simon Schma’s Citizens about the French Revolution and heads on pikes being paraded around Paris. A sad and scary time in this country to have a president who foments such violence and violent responses in others.

You

1

A line from Endi Bogue Hartigan’s poem “Running Sentences”:

First the cloud of gnats first the movement through the cloud
and then the body, not a cloud

Something about running through gnats — which I’ve done many times — and the body as not a cloud, triggered past thoughts about encountering someone on the trail and what happens to the You in the time/space between my Thank you and someone else’s You’re welcome when I thanked them for moving over.

2

These were the original thoughts, from a 31 may 2023 log entry:

I had a breakthrough in the second mile as I passed a walker and a dog on the Winchell Trail. They noticed me before I reached them and moved to the side. I said thank you and the woman replied you’re welcome. As I continued running on the steep-ish trail with no railing I thought about how when I said thank you, I was the I, she was the you. But when she answered you’re welcome, I become the you and she the I. Each of us both. Then I started thinking about the space and time between when we each embodied the pronoun, before my I turned into a you or her you into and I. This is the space of possibility where unhitching can happen, when we can be both a you and an I or something else that doesn’t divide and separate or assign us a fixed role — as active I or passive you. A moment when we can experience or behold the is below the threshold of thought, over and above society and its constructs.

31 may 2023

3

And here’s an excerpt from the draft of the poem I wrote:

first movement,
a making

space for each
other, then

a cloud of
Yous to pass

through. Bodies
enter cloud,

cloud enters
bodies

sept 3/RUN

3.1 miles
2 trails + tunnel of trees
56 degrees / humidity: 80%

Fall! Cooler this morning for my run. Windy, too. Ran south on the paved path, then north on the Winchell Trail. Heard kids arriving at Dowling Elementary. It’s the second day of school. Also heard wind rushing through the trees and some water falling out of the sewer at 42nd but not at 44th. No rowers or packs of runners or fragments of conversation.

Chanted in triple berries — strawberry/blueberry/raspberry — for several minutes then other triples — mystery/mystery/mystery deepening/quieting/deepening interior/exterior/deep deep down Thought about surfaces again and their value. Wondered: should I spend a month studying surfaces?

Listened to my “The Wheeling Life” playlist for the last mile of the run. Started with “Proud Mary” and my feet found the fast beat. I swung my arms back and forth but imagined they were rolling like wheels. Rollin’ Rollin’ Gave the most attention to the lyrics of XTC’s “Season Cycle”:

Darling, don’t you ever sit and ponder (darling, did you ever think)
About the building of the hills a-yonder (all this life stuff’s closely linked?)
Where we’re going in this verdant spiral
(‘Round and ’round) who’s pushing the pedals on the season cycle?

It’s September, so it is time to wrap up my reading of Endi Bogue Hartigan’s oh orchid o’clock. Here’s another great hour entry:

hour entry: The hawk is an approximate whisking together/ Endi Bogue Hartigan

The hawk is an approximate whisking together of fractions of itself the 23 intervals in the second the eye can see the 500 intervals in the second the ear can hear the 100 intervals in the second the bird can see. The second is forming midair like any duration or station in sun. Say “look a red-tailed hawk” and in that second the alliterative span of flashes of light formed by a moving pinking-sheared wing shape becomes it. I wish my words to become unfit for a second, to not make such burred sad sounds. The unspoken fractions of our seconds are expressed imprecisely all the time in seconds. “I’ll be there in a second.” “He was gone for a second.” “The next second they were on the ground.”

intervals / frames per second / illusion: converting what’s still into motion, what’s motion into a still / duration station span / blurred imprecise approximate

motion, the animation of the still
still, the freezing of motion
Oliver’s quieting of the spirit = slowing and smoothing of the motion

sept 2/RUNBIKESWIM

5 miles
franklin loop
70 degrees

I was planning to bike over to the lake and swim this morning but it looked gloomy and ominous, and then started raining and thundering for several hours. Bummer. By the time it stopped raining it had warmed up and the sun came out. Even so, I went for a hot and humid run. Everything was wet. A slick trail, dripping branches, wet shoes and shirt.

10 Things

  1. someone covered over the graffiti on the steps that read, stop hate, with blue paint
  2. sky, part 1: gray, heavy
  3. sky, part 2; blue and cloudless
  4. empty river
  5. white foam on the edge of the east bank near the franklin bridge
  6. kids laughing on the playground at the church daycare
  7. some orange and red leaves beyond the fence near east river road
  8. the squeal of tires near the trestle — what happened?
  9. orange cones lining the path: there must have been a race or a sponsored bike ride this past weekend
  10. the sliding bench was empty of people but close to a thick veil or green

Listened to voices, cars, and drips for the first half of the run, my “Doin’ Time” playlist for the second half. The song I remember the most was Peter Gabriel’s “Playing for Time.”

Oh, there’s a hill that we must climb
Climb through all the mist of time
It’s all in here what we’ve been through

Not a fan of the phrase, mist of time, but these lyrics reminded me of a few lines from Mary Oliver that I read right before heading out for my run:

Slowly
up the hill,
like a thicket of white flowers,
forever.
(The Leaf and the Cloud/ Mary Oliver)

The lines just preceding these were a series of good-byes to the world: the swaying trees, the black triangles of the winter sea, oranges, the fox sparrow, blue-winged teal, lettuce, turnip, rice fields, the morning light, and the goldfinches.

Down, I’m getting it down
Sorting it out
So everything I care about
Is held in here
All of those I love, inside

Listening to these lines, I thought about Oliver’s deepening of the spirit. I thought about the interior and moving inside of yourself and of burying memories and ideas not as a way to avoid them, but to protect them. I also thought about someone growing older and having memory-loss and trying to hold onto faces and names and experiences. I weighed the possibilities and limitations of going deep inside as compared to opening up to the outside. All of these thoughts came at once — not in a linear progression — in a burst which lasted until I heard these lines less than a minute later:

There goes the sun
Back from where it came
The young move to the center
The mom and dad, the frame

I just remembered: at the start of my run, I was thinking about the difference between ordinary and extraordinary time, which was a continuation of thoughts that began earlier this morning. Habits, routines, activities/events experienced again and again — the mundane — versus the scattered, sporadic occasions that break up the routine. While meaning and memories are often found in the singular moments, I’m drawn to the rituals and repetitions and daily events as where imporant meaning dwells.

Everyday. everyday = ordinary / every day = each day, daily.

Everyday—I have work to do (“Work” in The Leaf and the Cloud/ Mary Oliver)

I love that she writes everyday and not every day, so it’s not, each day I have work to do but, ordinary, everyday life: don’t bug me, I have work to do!

bike: 7.5 miles
lake nokomis and back*
75/71 degrees

*instead of the river road trail, we took 44th until the falls park, which is shorter

A good bike ride with Scott. As usual, better on the way back — easier, more relaxed. On the way there: wind. No problems with panicking about not seeing. The ride home was great: the sun was setting soon. Passed by adults playing soccer or flag football or some team sport in the field by the duck bridge, and kids playing soccer at Hiawatha school. RJP and FWA both played for a season at Hiawatha. I played for 5 or 6 years when I was kid in Northern Virginia. I loved it; they didn’t.

swim: 2 loops
lake nokomis main beach
74 degrees

Only 4 other people in the lake, and none of them were swimming laps, just standing around and talking — brrr, I bet that was cold! I swam far from the white buoys and almost completely avoided the milfoil. Only a few times, I got too close and felt the vines on my toes and wrists. For most of the swim there was wind and choppy water. In one direction, it pushed me along. In the other, I got to swim straight into it, which I liked doing. Mostly, a fun swim. The vines were the only bad thing about it. They were too thick by the one buoy so I didn’t want to circle around it. This made it much harder to loop, so I mostly stopped and twisted around. I noticed some birds in the sky and a few planes. Trees on the distant shore were looking less green — were any of them changing?

I thought about how this might be my final swim of the season. It’s cooler for the rest of the week — highs in the 60s, so they might take down the buoys soon. It’s been a great season. I swam for longer, both distance and time. And, I had fun reciting more water lines in my head and writing about water.