Tag: poem - Page 21

oct 28/RUN

5.45 miles
franklin loop
33 degrees/feels like 26

Cold today. Overcast. Fairly calm. Beautiful. The leaves are past their peak. My favorite spot, in the tunnel of trees, on the rim of the gorge, feels so much wider without leaves on any of the trees lining the path. Expansive. Airy. Capacious. Climbing out of the tunnel, still heading north, I could see the river below. With the gray sky, it didn’t sparkle, but it wasn’t dull either.

For a few weeks now, I’ve been trying to figure out why I find being able (finally) to see the river or the forest floor or further into the gorge so delightful. It’s not a need to know or a fear of the unknown. Something to do with more space and room to breathe, I think. Mulling it over in my head at one point during the run, I thought about how the excess of green in late spring/summer/early fall intoxicates and suffocates, choking out words and ideas that aren’t green. Even as green is my favorite color, I do not like when green takes over everything. Green = busy doing things, producing, connecting, crowds/crowded/crowding out.

Crossed the Franklin bridge and noticed how the trees behind me on the west side glowed. Kept turning back to look, wishing I had reversed the loop today so I could watch them come into view. Felt good and strong and relaxed. No walk breaks. Ran up the hill past the lake st/marshall bridge to take in the view at my favorite spot on the east side then crossed the road to the bridge. Noticed the white bike memorial near the crosswalk and thought about the runner that died here a few years ago: hit by a distracted driver while crossing in the crosswalk. Admired the red, orange and yellow trees lining the west side as I crossed the bridge back to the west side. Crossing the parkway again and entering the trail on the west side, I could smell breakfast at Longfellow Grill. No roller skiers. No Daily Walker or Man in Black or fat tires. No annoying squirrels or honking geese or random coyotes. Just me, running free.

How Wonderful
BY IRVING FELDMAN

How wonderful to be understood,
to just sit here while some kind person
relieves you of the awful burden
of having to explain yourself, of having
to find other words to say what you meant,
or what you think you thought you meant,
and of the worse burden of finding no words,
of being struck dumb . . . because some bright person
has found just the right words for you—and you
have only to sit here and be grateful
for words so quiet so discerning they seem
not words but literate light, in which
your merely lucid blossoming grows lustrous.
How wonderful that is!

And how altogether wonderful it is
not to be understood, not at all, to, well,
just sit here while someone not unkindly
is saying those impossibly wrong things,
or quite possibly they’re the right things
if you are, which you’re not, that someone
—a difference, finally, so indifferent
it would be conceit not to let it pass,
unkindness, really, to spoil someone’s fun.
And so you don’t mind, you welcome the umbrage
of those high murmurings over your head,
having found, after all, you are grateful
—and you understand this, how wonderful!—
that you’ve been led to be quietly yourself,
like a root growing wise in darkness
under the light litter, the falling words.

How wonderful to be able to read this poem early on a Monday morning and then realize, hours later, that it might open up some new understanding in how to both like one thing (for Feldman, to be quietly understood; for me, to be rid of the excess of green) and its (almost?) opposite (to be quietly misunderstood; to love green as my favorite color). Also, how wonderful to end a poem with the idea of being led to be quietly yourself like a root growing in darkness! This line evokes winter–and maybe that’s why I like winter and its darkness and slow, unnoticed growth (or, if not growth, at least continuing to be). I like being led (or left) to be quietly myself.

oct 25/RUN

3 miles
trestle turn around
40 degrees

Hooray! I got to run again after 2 days off. My right knee doesn’t hurt at all, although my left hip is a little sore. Beautiful beside the gorge. So many intensely yellow leaves on the trees, falling from the sky, on the ground. Saw some forest floor. Greeted the Daily Walker. Noticed a dirt trail leading down to the gorge at 29th street. Stopped and admired the view. Successfully avoided squirrels. Felt relaxed and strong. Could have kept running but I didn’t want to push it. I have a 10k race tomorrow morning. Ended at the overlook at the 35th street parking lot. The few leaves left on the trees were shimmering in the sun and wind.

A Rhyme for Halloween
BY MAURICE KILWEIN GUEVARA

Tonight I light the candles of my eyes in the lee
And swing down this branch full of red leaves.
Yellow moon, skull and spine of the hare,
Arrow me to town on the neck of the air.

I hear the undertaker make love in the heather;
The candy maker, poor fellow, is under the weather.
Skunk, moose, raccoon, they go to the doors in threes
With a torch in their hands or pleas: “O, please . . .”

Baruch Spinoza and the butcher are drunk:
One is the tail and one is the trunk
Of a beast who dances in circles for beer
And doesn’t think twice to learn how to steer.

Our clock is blind, our clock is dumb.
Its hands are broken, its fingers numb.
No time for the martyr of our fair town
Who wasn’t a witch because she could drown.

Now the dogs of the cemetery are starting to bark
At the vision of her, bobbing up through the dark.
When she opens her mouth to gasp for air,
A moth flies out and lands in her hair.

The apples are thumping, winter is coming.
The lips of the pumpkin soon will be humming.
By the caw of the crow on the first of the year,
Something will die, something appear.

I love this poem. Learned what a lee is: 1. protecting shelter 2. the side or area that is sheltered from the wind. Want to use arrow as verb in my own writing. The rhymes here are a lot of fun and not forced at all. A great Halloween poem.

oct 24/BIKE

30 minutes
bike stand, basement

I have a little bit of stiffness and pain in my right knee so I’m taking a few days off from running. So difficult! It’s beautiful outside, just past peak leaf peepin’ and I’d love to be out by the gorge but my knee doesn’t want to. Biked in the basement instead which was fine but not nearly as fun or inspirational.

Prayer to be Still and Know
Nickole Brown

Lord, let my ears go secret agent, each
a microphone so hot it picks up things
silent, reverbing even the hum of stone
close to its eager, silver grill. Let my ears forget
years trained to human chatter
wired into every room, even those empty
except of me, each broadcast and jingle
tricking me into being less
lonely than I am. Let my ears forget
the clack and rumble, our tambourining and fireworking
distractions, our roar of applause. Let my hands quit
their clapping and rest in a new kind of prayer, one
that doesn’t ask but listens, palms up in my lap.
Like an owl, let me triangulate icy shuffling under snow as
vole, let me not just name the name
when I spot a soundtrack of birdsong
but understand the notes through each syrinx
as a singular missive—begging, flirting, fussing, each
companion call and alarm as sharp with desire and fear
as my own. Prick my ears, Lord. Make them hungry
satellites, have your way with their tiny bones,
teach the drum within that dark to drum
again. Because within the hammering of woodpecker
is a long tongue unwinding like a tape measure from inside
his pileated head, darting dinner from the pine’s soft bark.
And somewhere I know is a spider who births
a filament of silk and flies it to the next branch; somewhere,
a fiddlehead unstrings its violin into the miracle of
fern. And somewhere, a mink not made into a coat
cracks open a mussel’s shell, and with her mouth full
of that gray meat, yawns. Those are your sounds, are they not?
Do not deny it, Lord, do not deny
me. I do not know those songs. Nor do I know the hush
a dandelion’s face makes when it closes, surrenders, then goes
to seed. No, I only know the sound my own breath makes
as I wish and blow that perfect globe away;
I only know the small, satisfactory
popping of roots when I call it weed and yank it
from the yard. There is a language of all
you’ve created. Hear me, please. I just want to be
still enough to hear. Right here, Lord:
I want to be.

I want to spend some more time with this beautiful poem!

oct 22/BIKERUNBIKE

bike: 17 minutes
stand in basement

Windy and rainy and cold outside so I decided to bike in the basement while watching more of the Super League Triathlon. Such a bummer that all of the beautiful leaves will be ripped from the trees by this wind instead of getting to fall gently to the ground.

run: 1.2 miles
treadmill in basement

Decided to run for 10 minutes in-between bike rides. Listened to music and stared ahead at the lightbulb reflecting in the darkened window. Not very inspiring but still felt good to move.

bike: 16 minutes
stand in basement

Not much to add with this bike ride except that I biked for a minute less yet burned 15 more calories. I guess the run in-between helped?

My Invisible Horse and the Speed of Human Decency
Matthew Olzmann

People always tell me, “Don’t put the cart
before the horse,” which is curious
because I don’t have a horse.
Is this some new advancement in public shaming—
repeatedly drawing one’s attention
to that which one is currently not, and never
has been, in possession of?
If ever, I happen to obtain a Clydesdale,
then I’ll align, absolutely, it to its proper position
in relation to the cart, but I can’t
do that because all I have is the cart.
One solitary cart—a little grief wagon that goes
precisely nowhere—along with, apparently, one
invisible horse, which does not pull,
does not haul, does not in any fashion
budge, impel or tow my disaster buggy
up the hill or down the road.
I’m not asking for much. A more tender world
with less hatred strutting the streets.
Perhaps a downtick in state-sanctioned violence
against civilians. Wind through the trees.
Water under the bridge. Kindness.
LOL, says the world. These things take time, says
the Office of Disappointment. Change cannot
be rushed, says the roundtable of my smartest friends.
Then, together, they say, The cart!
They say, The horse!
They say, Haven’t we told you already?
So my invisible horse remains
standing where it previously stood:
between hotdog stands and hallelujahs,
between the Nasdaq and the moon’s adumbral visage,
between the status quo and The Great Filter,
and I can see that it’s not his fault—being
invisible and not existing—
how he’s the product of both my imagination
and society’s failure of imagination.
Watch how I press my hand against his translucent flank.
How I hold two sugar cubes to his hypothetical mouth.
How I say I want to believe in him,
speaking softly into his missing ear.

I’m very glad I gave this poem a chance and kept reading. At first, I wasn’t sure, but when the narrator starts imagining his invisible horse, I was intrigued. And when he offers up the fabulous line: “with less hatred strutting the streets” I was all in.

oct 21/BIKERUN

bike: 15 minutes
basement stand

I’m calling it. No more biking outside this year. Brought my bike inside this morning and put it on the stand in the basement. Rode it for 15 minutes while watching Super League Triathlon in Malta–love these races!

run: 3 miles
trestle turn around
54 degrees
humidity: 85%

I could write about the many leaves that had fallen in the wind and rain and were littering the path or how it felt like it was still raining with all the water dropping from the trees or the strange quality of the light–dark at first, a light slowly spreading, then sunshine–or seeing the forest floor a few times or turning around at the trestle and racing the cars crawling their way through the four way stop or actually enjoying running into the stiff wind, a big grin on my face or stopping, at the end, to study the ravine and being able to clearly see the wrought iron fence. I could, but all I really want to mention are the two turkeys I saw crossing Edmond Boulevard as I walked home through my neighborhood. The one in front was running fast, bobbing its head, while the second, smaller one tried to keep up. Did you know that turkeys could run fast? I didn’t. As I watched them run away I thought that seeing them run so quickly, with their graceful legs and awkward heads, was all I needed today. How cool!

Found this poem/essay this morning via twitter. I like the form of the Venn Diagram.

When the Light Betrays Us Twice/Marisa Crane

oct 16/RUN

4.5 miles
Franklin Bridge turn around
45 degrees

45 degrees is a great temperature to run in. Lots of yellow leaves. More red appearing now too. My favorite spot above the gorge is thinning out a bit more. No forest floor yet, but soon. Everywhere, I can see something. At one point I wondered, which will come first: the snow, closing the walking path or bare leaves, revealing the view? Saw a spazzy squirrel cross in front of the runner just ahead. Unlike me, he didn’t flinch or stutter step when this happened. No Daily Walker or roller skiers or fat tires or geese. Once I thought I saw a duck by the side of the path but it was just some fallen branches. This was a very good run–I felt strong and joyful and in harmony with my knees and lower left back. We all love October running.

When I stopped running, I walked to the overlook and climbed up on the wall, trying to see the river. Still partially blocked by leaves, but not for long! Also checked out the ravine, walking along the edge, peering down through the planks in the split rail fence into maple basswood forest. Even when the leaves are gone, there won’t be much to see. You have to climb down the broken wooden steps or hike down the crushed limestone path to see and hear it. Two small falls, one made from concrete, the other stone, drip (almost dribble) down to the forest floor and an old sewer pipe you can walk on. Lots of erosion here. Before the snow hits, I’d like to hike down into this ravine and explore it.

Practice
Ellen Bryant Voigt

To weep unbidden, to wake
at night in order to weep, to wait
for the whisker on the face of the clock
to twitch again, moving
the dumb day forward—

is this merely practice?
Some believe in heaven,
some in rest. We’ll float,
you said. Afterward
we’ll float between two worlds—

five bronze beetles
stacked like spoons in one
peony blossom, drugged by lust:
if I came back as a bird
I’d remember that—

until everyone we love
is safe is what you said.

The first stanza of this beautiful poem! To weep, to wake, to wait for the whisker on the face of the clock to move the dumb day forward. Five bronze beetles stacked like spoons is pretty pleasing too. Also, floating between two worlds is nice. I’ve been thinking about that a lot with the gorge and a line from the gorge management plan about how the west river parkway road/trail is the transition between two worlds: the longfellow neighborhood and the gorge. How can I write about this in a poem?

oct 15/RUN

5 miles
river road, south/falls/minnehaha creek path/longfellow gardens/falls/river road, north
43 degrees

Decided to turn right instead of left when I reached the river. Listened to a playlist as I ran towards the falls. Kept going up the mustache bridge to the creek path to check out if the grove of trees right before the duck bridge was glowing golden. Not yet. Ran under the mustache bridge. Looked for the statue of Longfellow in the field but couldn’t find him. Must have been hiding behind the tall grass. Ran back through the falls and north on the river road. Overcast and cool. Great weather for a run. Felt strong and happy to be admiring one bright orange tree and a ravine filled with lemon yellow trees near the double bridge. At the end of the run, checked out the ravine. More leaves gone, more chances to study the slope and the trees and the fallen tree trunks.

Ways Things Vanish/ TODD DILLARD

Up sleeves, into ears,
mouse holes, magpie nests,
around corners, through doors,
up stairs, eaten by shadows,
eaten by toddlers, eaten by dogs
by crows by hogs by vultures,
into boardrooms, into boats,
into cultures, into space,
into bullet holes,
sometimes a whole boy
will just fall into one,
leaving a mountain of air
which we call a country,
its flag a trackless gaze,
its anthem a mother
doing the hard work
of turning a name
into a question.

oct 14/RUN

5.5 miles
franklin loop
40 degrees

Such wonderful weather! Sunny. Calm. Not too much wind. No headphones today. Started with gloves on. By mile 2, gloves off, sleeves pushed up. Wore my vest, which made it too hot. Don’t remember much about the first few miles. No Daily Walker, no fat tires. A few runners, some walkers, annoying squirrels. The river looked gorgeous from the franklin bridge. It was fun running under the golden leafed trees on the east side. What did I think about? I can’t remember. All I can recall is counting to 4 to keep steady. 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 Glanced down at the east river flats but couldn’t see the paved path. Ran a little extra up the hill past the stairs leading up the lake street bridge so I could see my favorite part of this route where there are no trees and you get an open view of the river and the west side. Ran over the bridge, through the tunnel of trees–a little more light, a little less leaves, and stopped running near the overlook and right before the welcoming oaks. The view from the overlook is getting better every day. As I walked through the Welcoming Oaks, I looked up at the golden leaves and the stretching branches. Crunched through the fallen leaves in the grass. Such a satisfying sound. Ended at the ravine. Every day more leaves fall and more of the ravine is visible. Noticed how two planks on the split rail fence had separated as the branches of the trees from below pushed against them.

Finally looked up the word “gloaming,” which I’ve encountered in a lot of poems. It’s a poetic word for dusk/twilight. Not sure if I’ll using it in a poem but I like how it sounds. Also looked up vista and found something interesting: “Vista is generally used today for broad sweeping views of the kind you might see from a mountaintop. But the word originally meant an avenue-like view, narrowed by a line of trees on either side. And vista has also long been used (like view and outlook) to mean a mental scan of the future—as if you were riding down a long grand avenue and what you could see a mile or so ahead of you was where you’d be in the very near future.”

Daughter
Jon Pineda

Let us take the river
path near Fall Hill.

There we will negotiate
an outcrop with its silvered
initials & other bits of graffiti,

all the way to the broken edge
that overlooks the bend,
& hold hands until

we can no longer tell
where the river ends.

oct 11/RUN

2.8 miles
trestle turn around
39 degrees

Earlier this morning, flurries in the air and then some strange sleet snow combination. Nothing stuck. The ground is too warm. Still, winter is coming! Greeted the Daily Walker–does he like winter as much as I do? He might. He’s very hard core, wearing a short sleeve shirt with gloves. Listened loudly to my playlist. Wore some gloves that I removed after mile 1. Saw lots of squirrels. Orange and yellow leaves are everywhere, mostly still in the trees but more and more on the ground. The view above the ravine is much clearer today.

Thinking about map poetry today and how to use the map in my project to tell a story about my run. Read through a very interesting presentation on the topic: Map Poetry So many maps I could make! A map of gorge smells or the best places to see the river or trees that gossip and greet or every pothole and crack and fissure and dip and curve to watch out for when you have low vision…I’ll have to think about this for a while.

Love the reading of this poem. Also love Ours Poetica.

oct 9/RUN

5 miles
Franklin Hill turn around
59 degrees

Windy but who cares when it’s this nice outside? Sunny. Not too warm. Saw my shadow. Felt like I was in a dream, floating above the path. Noticed lots of yellow, a few splashes of orange and red. Heard some people talking below the path by the railroad trestle. Tried to figure out when the Winchell Trail ended near Franklin but couldn’t. Still too many leaves blocking my view. Greeted the Daily Walker. Encountered a fat tire. A few squirrels almost darted out in front of me. Ran from the bottom of the hill to just under Franklin Bridge. Walked for a few minutes. Started running again as someone was passing me who was just slightly faster. Followed her for the rest of the run, slowly falling further behind. Hit 5 miles in the tunnel of trees and stopped running. Walked past the overlook and saw the leaves shimmering in the breeze. Such a beautiful sight. Studied the ravine and noticed how it is gradually become more visible. Standing on the edge, staring hard, I can almost see the railing of the fence below. The sun was cutting through the leaves, shining brightly. Still trying to figure out how to write my final haibun about this ravine. Don’t have the story quite yet.

Vow/ DIANA KHOI NGUYEN

It will be windy for a while until it isn’t. The waves will shoal. A red-legged cormorant will trace her double along glassy water, forgetting they are hungry. The sea will play this motif over and over, but there will be no preparing for it otherwise. Water will quiver in driftwood. Sound preceding absence, a white dog trailing a smaller one: ghost and noon shadow, two motes disappearing into surf. And when the low tide comes lapping and clear, the curled fronds of seaweed will furl and splay, their algal sisters brushing strands against sands where littleneck clams feed underwater. Light rain will fall and one cannot help but lean into the uncertainty of the sea. Bow: a knot of two loops, two loose ends, our bodies on either side of this shore where we will dip our hands to feel what can’t be seen. Horseshoe crabs whose blue blood rich in copper will reach for cover, hinged between clouds and sea. It will never be enough, the bull kelp like a whip coiling in tender hands, hands who know to take or be taken, but take nothing with them: I will marry you.
I will marry you. So we can owe what we own to every beautiful thing.

Love this poem, especially how it sounds: strands/sands/clams Such beautiful details leading to an explanation of the title at the end.

oct 8/RUN

3.25 miles
two trails + extra
58 degrees

A few nice days before rain then possibly snow! on Saturday and Sunday. I like winter, but this is a little early even for me. No headphones today. A great morning for a run. Wore my awesomely bright yellow 10 mile shirt from last year’s race. A walker called out, “have you recovered from the 10 mile yet?” (the annual 10 mile race was on Sunday–I didn’t run it) and I called back and then wondered for several minutes if I unintentionally sounded rude, “this is from last year’s race.” The river was shining. Noticed a glowing yellow tree–the yellow that still has a hint of green. Felt good and strong. Ran all the way past the ford bridge so that I could check out the fall colors framed by the bridge as I ran back north–this used to be one of my favorite fall views when we lived at the old house. Then, even though it was only a minute later, forgot to look up as I ran back under the bridge. Tried to spy, but couldn’t find, any wild turkeys. No eagles or hawks, just a few squirrels and dogs. Once I reached the 44th street parking lot, ran down on the Winchell Trail. Heard water spilling out at the first drain pipe, but forgot to listen at the second one. Heard the kids playing at the school. Glanced out at the beautiful blue river from the wrought iron fence. Discovered that finally, after months, they have removed the leaning tree. No more stories to tell about the yarn hanging from it or questions to ask about when it might fall completely or be removed. Instead of taking the steps at 38th, kept running on the Winchell Trail. Ran into some mud at the bottom where the parks department had cleared out some wildflowers. Ran up to the mesa and stopped. Studied the ravine as I walked back up the trail to the parking lot and thought about how this ravine can never be seen from above, even when the leaves are gone and the view is clear. The only way to really see it is to hike down in it…there might be something there to write about with being inside/outside…

Reading Ann Lauterbach’s Spell right now and found this small poem that includes so many words that I’m thinking about right now. Not sure if I understand it or like it, but felt like I should post it here today.

Nominal/ann lauterbach

Through the bare branch, a flutter.

I thought a flag was an immense wing.

Sky sliced through with long clouds.

The city is an avalanche; all torn down.

I have a bridge in mind; a river.

River, clouds, sky, wing, branch.

Flag. City. Avalanche. Bridge. Mind.

oct 7/RUN

5.3 miles
franklin loop
52 degrees

Sunny. Calm. At first, rumbling trucks, annoying, overly precocious kids. Soon silence. Saw a squirrel and possibly a rat. Heard crows. Orange, yellow, red in the gorge. Still too much green–a glut of green. Got sneak peeks of the river through the thinning trees. Crossing over the franklin bridge glimpsed blue river. Smooth, barely a ripple. Ran under the shade of some cool trees on the east side. I always think of this as St. Paul, but it’s not until just before Meeker Dam. Here, it’s Minneapolis–Prospect Park. Lots of dogs and their owners. A woman walk-running or run-walking or walking but trying to run or running but trying to walk–some combination I can’t quite describe. Heard the water that was seeping through the limestone gorge trickling down to the river–is this a strange sentence? too awkwardly written? Felt really great 4.5 miles in. Relaxed. Not too tough. After stopping, walked to the overlook near the welcoming oaks, climbed on the wall and looked out at the gorge. Still too hard to see past the green. I’ll try to remember to stop and check the progress of the view after my runs. Someday soon, I’ll see the river and then the other side.

Walked over to the split rail fence above the ravine and the sewer pipe that freezes in the winter and creates an icy tunnel, then drips blueish greenish water as it melts. The Winchell Trail winds around this ravine, over a steel grate and beside a wrought iron fence that once displayed dozen of keys with social justice-y messages until they were ripped out–by who and why? I wish I could remember the messages. A few: Be nice. We are One. Resist Fear. From up above, at the end of my run, I cannot see the ravine or the sewer or the keys. Sometimes I smell the sewer or hear someone talking below me, but I can’t see anything but green until the leaves fall in late October, early November. This is my favorite time at the gorge. I love being able to see deep into the gorge when its bare bones are exposed, its secrets revealed. I love the color palate of rich browns, pale blues, dull grays, rusted reds. I love the smell of mulching leaves, the sharp, crisp air, the paths that aren’t yet covered with snow but with crunching, crackling leaves.

One Heart/yi-young lee

Look at the birds. Even flying
is born

out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, open

at either end of day.
The work of wings
was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.

oct 3/RUN

3 miles
trestle turn around
48 degrees

Ran with Scott in the afternoon. Still wore shorts, but it’s getting colder. A great run. Relaxed, not too fast. Getting ready for the 10k race on Saturday. Haven’t raced a 10k in almost a year. Noticed more leaves have fallen from the trees. The Welcoming Oaks are now a goldengrove unleaving. When did that happen? Everything is changing too fast.

Spring and Fall
BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

to a young child

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

oct 2/RUN

1.6 miles
river road, north/south
50 degrees

A short run in the afternoon. Pretty sure I listened to a playlist, but I can’t remember now, writing this days later. Ran up from under the lake street bridge, around the rim above the rowing club, then turned around and headed back. It’s getting cooler outside. Looking more like fall too. Yellows and oranges and reds.

Rabbits and Fire
BY ALBERTO RÍOS

Everything’s been said
But one last thing about the desert,
And it’s awful: During brush fires in the Sonoran desert,
Brush fires that happen before the monsoon and in the great,
Deep, wide, and smothering heat of the hottest months,
The longest months,
The hypnotic, immeasurable lulls of August and July—
During these summer fires, jackrabbits—
Jackrabbits and everything else
That lives in the brush of the rolling hills,
But jackrabbits especially—
Jackrabbits can get caught in the flames,
No matter how fast and big and strong and sleek they are.
And when they’re caught,
Cornered in and against the thick
Trunks and thin spines of the cactus,
When they can’t back up any more,
When they can’t move, the flame—
It touches them,
And their fur catches fire.
Of course, they run away from the flame,
Finding movement even when there is none to be found,
Jumping big and high over the wave of fire, or backing
Even harder through the impenetrable
Tangle of hardened saguaro
And prickly pear and cholla and barrel,
But whichever way they find,
What happens is what happens: They catch fire
And then bring the fire with them when they run.
They don’t know they’re on fire at first,
Running so fast as to make the fire
Shoot like rocket engines and smoke behind them,
But then the rabbits tire
And the fire catches up,
Stuck onto them like the needles of the cactus,
Which at first must be what they think they feel on their skins.
They’ve felt this before, every rabbit.
But this time the feeling keeps on.
And of course, they ignite the brush and dried weeds
All over again, making more fire, all around them.
I’m sorry for the rabbits.
And I’m sorry for us
To know this.

Such a sad and beautiful poem. What a storyteller Ríos is!

oct 1/RUN

5 miles
franklin loop
52 degrees/rain

Wasn’t sure how long I was going to run when I left the house. Somewhere between the railroad trestle and the turn-off to franklin, decided to do the 5 mile loop. When I started the run, it was misting, then it stopped, then after I crossed over to the east river road, it started raining. Not drizzling, but raining. Still in my counting to 4 phase, I composed another mindless chant: I am running/in the cool rain/it feels so good/on my warm skin I didn’t mind the rain. A lot of the time I could hardly tell that it was raining. It felt good running. Encountered a few walkers–any other runners? Yes, at least one, near the franklin bridge. Watched the river as I ran over the bridge. Was able to get a few quick glimpses of the east flats now that the leaves are falling.

October (excerpts)
BY MAY SWENSON

Knuckles of the rain
on the roof,
chuckles into the drain-
pipe, spatters on
the leaves that litter
the grass. Melancholy
morning, the tide full
in the bay, an overflowing
bowl. At least, no wind,
no roughness in the sky,
its gray face bedraggled
by its tears.

I sit with braided fingers
and closed eyes
in a span of late sunlight.
The spokes are closing.
It is fall: warm milk of light,
though from an aging breast.
I do not mean to pray.
The posture for thanks or
supplication is the same
as for weariness or relief.
But I am glad for the luck
of light. Surely it is godly,
that it makes all things
begin, and appear, and become
actual to each other.
Light that’s sucked into
the eye, warming the brain
with wires of color.
Light that hatched life
out of the cold egg of earth.

Now and then, a red leaf riding
the slow flow of gray water.
From the bridge, see far into
the woods, now that limbs are bare,
ground thick-littered. See,
along the scarcely gliding stream,
the blanched, diminished, ragged
swamp and woods the sun still
spills into. Stand still, stare
hard into bramble and tangle,
past leaning broken trunks,
sprawled roots exposed. Will
something move?—some vision
come to outline? Yes, there—
deep in—a dark bird hangs
in the thicket, stretches a wing.
Reversing his perch, he says one
“Chuck.” His shoulder-patch
that should be red looks gray.
This old redwing has decided to
stay, this year, not join the
strenuous migration. Better here,
in the familiar, to fade.

The more I read through these lines, the more I love them. Knuckles, chuckles, spatters, leaves that litter, melancholy morning. The simplicity of: it is fall. The luck of light that makes all things actual to each other–but is that true? Hatching life out of the egg of the earth. The gentle commands in this last stanza: see, stand still, stare hard.

sept 25/RUN

3.35 miles
trestle turn around + extra
63 degrees

Cooler this morning. Sunny. Less humid. Beautiful. Greeted the Daily Walker. Saw a roller skier. Looked at the river sparkling in the sun and some green leaves shimmering in the wind. Admired more of the purple flowers on the bluff. Thought about the different fences lining the path: wrought iron near the rowing club and in the tunnel of trees, split rail near the trestle, chain link half buried near the 35th street parking lot. Made note of the WPA sign on the big boulder just before lake street. Tried to stay relaxed and even in my breathing and arm swinging. Wished I would have counted the number of times the running and biking paths separate on this route. Maybe next time.

the trestle

Earlier this morning, before my run, I started to think about the Railroad trestle and its history so I looked it up. It’s called the Short Line Bridge and it was built in 1880. It carried passengers from Minneapolis to St. Paul until 1971. Now it has a single track and is owned by Canadian Pacific (CP). In the time I have been running by/near this trestle (5 years on a regular basis), I can only remember seeing 2 trains. One crossing right over my head as I ran under it and one traveling on the tracks as I biked on the Midtown Greenway trail which starts at the end of the bridge and follows the trail across Minneapolis. For the past decade, ever since the greenway was built, bikers have been interested in extending the greenway over this bridge and to St. Paul and the bike trails there. I haven’t had time to read it closely yet, but here’s an article on the most recent efforts. It would be awesome if they could do this!

To the Light of September/ W. S. MERWIN

When you are already here
you appear to be only
a name that tells of you
whether you are present or not

and for now it seems as though
you are still summer
still the high familiar
endless summer
yet with a glint
of bronze in the chill mornings
and the late yellow petals
of the mullein fluttering
on the stalks that lean
over their broken
shadows across the cracked ground

but they all know
that you have come
the seed heads of the sage
the whispering birds
with nowhere to hide you
to keep you for later

you
who fly with them

you who are neither
before nor after
you who arrive
with blue plums
that have fallen through the night

perfect in the dew

“But they all know/that you have come” Yes. I love how this poem captures my thoughts this fall about September and how it is fall but still feels almost like summer but not quite. It’s summer until you see the leaves changing color, or the light shifting earlier, or the geese wildly calling out in the evening as they head south.

sept 24/RUN

1.5 miles
part of 2 trails
82 degrees

Is this my new Tuesday tradition? Doing a short run in the afternoon to make sure I get my move goal? Maybe. If I do it next Tuesday, I hope it’s not as hot as today or last Tuesday. The thing I remember most about this run is being on the lower trail and hearing all the car whooshing by above my head. Very intense. Lots of people heading home, I guess.

Nature Aria
Yi Lei
translated by Tracy K. Smith and Changtai Bi

Autumn wind chases in
From all directions
And a thousand chaste leaves
Give way.

Scatter in me the seeds
Of a thousand saplings.
Let grow a grassy heaven.
On my brow: a sun.
This bliss is yours, Living
World, and alone it endures.
Music at midnight.
Young wine.
Lovers hand in hand
By daylight, moonlight.
Living World, hold me
In your mouth,

Slip on your frivolous shoes
And dance with me. My soul
Is the wild vine
Who alone has grasped it,
Who has seen through the awful plot,
Who will arrive in time to vanquish
The river already heavy with blossoms,
The moon spilling light onto packs
Of men. What is sadder than witless
Wolves, wind without borders,
Nationless birds, small gifts
Laden with love’s intentions?

Fistfuls of rain fall hard, fill
My heart with mud. An old wind
May still come chasing in.
Resurrection fire. And me here
Laughing like a cloud in trousers,
Entreating the earth to bury me.

sept 23/RUN

5 miles
franklin hill
60 degrees

Cooler. Is Fall finally here? Sunny. Calm. Some beautiful light purple wildflowers lining the path. Do they come every year? I’ve never noticed them before. Saw the Daily Walker and a roller skier who called out, “you’re going race pace!” Encountered a few annoying strollers taking over the entire path. Did a lot of counting to 4. 1 2 3 4/ 1 2 3 4/ 1 2 3 4. Reached the bottom of the Franklin hill and immediately turned around without noticing the river. Saw more slashes of orange and red in the trees. Thought more about my writing project and how narrow to make the focus.

A Blank White Page
BY FRANCISCO X. ALARCÓN

is a meadow
after a snowfall
that a poem
hopes to cross

What a beautiful way of describing a blank white page. Speaking of blank white pages, this morning I finished writing in my 4th running/training notebook and started the 5th one. Very satisfying to completely fill so many notebooks.

sept 20/RUN

3 miles
trestle turn around
72 degrees/ 85% humidity

1 2 3 4/1 2 3 4/1 2 3 4…counted to four over and over again to keep myself steady and moving forward in the heat and humidity (dew point: 69). In the gorge, it’s starting to look like fall even if it doesn’t feel like it. Leaves floating, then littering the ground. Saw some more slashes of red, a few blobs of orange, some yellow stripes. Greeted the Daily Walker and 3 or 4 other runners and walkers. Smelled the sewer pipes. Avoided squirrels.

Thought more about my project and what I’m trying to do with it. Today’s goal: play with some lines of text from the “Great River Greening Management Plan, 2002” and Chapter 2 of the Mississippi Gorge Regional Park Master Plan 2018/2019. Possibly a cento? I’m specifically interested in phrases describing the impact of humans on the gorge and plans for protecting the gorge from humans.

Currently reading Wilder by Claire Wahmanholm which I discovered yesterday. Love it. A mix of free verse with erasures (taken from Sagan’s Cosmos!), and prose poems (some based on a letter or the alphabet or an ongoing story she’s telling).

ALMANAC/claire wahmanholm

We head grown leaky. Our heads were full of fissures that wouldn’t seal no matter how tightly we claimed the vises’ jaws around our temples. Our scalps wept until only the present rattled in our ears, bone-dry and rabid. We walked around the corner or had been walking for years. We entered the same empty house at the end of the same dirt road. In every room I found a yellow almanac under the bed and read the same page, which told me the time Neptune would rise, the time civil dust would descend. I pressed the almanac to my head. What was time? What was descend? Whenever I left the house I would take the almanac with me. I put it under my raw-hide pillow, hoping that while I slept, my head would somehow mend. Every night I dreamed of frost spreading across a ragged field, knitting the furrows with its uniform white.

sept 19/RUN

3.1 miles
two trails + extra
72 degrees

Ran south almost to the falls then north until I reached the lower trail at 44th. Hot, again. Totally dazed, out of it, from a cold. When I’m trying to sleep or write it bothers me, but when I’m running it helps to enhance the dreamy, untethered state I like to reach. Listened to my playlist until the lower trail. Then, I don’t remember much. Heard some runners above me, school kids on the playground. Did I look at the river? Not really. Noticed some of the trees weren’t quite as excessively green.

Thought a little about my haibun/running route project and how I’m interested in linking my experience of the gorge with its management by minneapolis park and rec (and longfellow neighborhood and friends of the mississippi river and national parks, including mississippi national river and recreation area mnrra). It’s fascinating to read all the documents online. So many project proposals and detailed information about plants and trails and ecosystems and access.

Found this abecedarian poem on twitter. Love this form and love how it’s in prose form instead of lines. beginning/claire wahmanholm (in wilder)

Right now, I’m really interested in what wild/wilderness means in the context of the gorge and my experiences of it. Maybe this collection of poems will give me some ideas?

sept 17/RUN

1.5 miles
two trails (almost)
83 degrees

So hot! Wasn’t planning to run today but then, when I didn’t think I would reach my move goal of 490 calories, decided to do a short run. The things we do to keep a streak going. 114 days now of filling all 3 rings on my apple watch. Very glad I did. Listened to a playlist and forgot that I had a cold–I always feel less sick when I’m running. I think I was the only person I saw running. I imagined people driving by looking at me like I was crazy running in this heat with the bright sun and not much shade. Ah September, the annoying month of being teased with wonderful fall weather and then cruelly tricked with mini heat waves.

Found this poem while searching for “heat” on the poetry foundation site. I feel like it really fits in ways that I don’t quite understand yet.

The Heat of Autumn
BY JANE HIRSHFIELD

The heat of autumn
is different from the heat of summer.
One ripens apples, the other turns them to cider.
One is a dock you walk out on,
the other the spine of a thin swimming horse
and the river each day a full measure colder.
A man with cancer leaves his wife for his lover.
Before he goes she straightens his belts in the closet,
rearranges the socks and sweaters inside the dresser
by color. That’s autumn heat:
her hand placing silver buckles with silver,
gold buckles with gold, setting each
on the hook it belongs on in a closet soon to be empty,
and calling it pleasure.

sept 16/RUN

3 miles
trestle turn around
72 degrees/72% humidity/dew point: 65

Hot. Humid. Even though it was sunny, I don’t remember seeing my shadow. She was probably hiding in the cool shade down by the river. A squirrel, rustling in the brush, darted out right in front of me and then quickly ran back into the woods. At first I was listening to my audio book, but around the time I reached the Welcoming Oaks, I decided to turn it off and listen to my breathing, the traffic, the gorge. I counted to 4 over and over again. ONE two three four ONE two three four. Without headphones, I also managed to hear the loud cracks of acorns hitting the asphalt. Crack! Crack! Not one landed on my head or near my feet. And I heard at least one goose honking up above–were they confused by the weather. Is it summer or fall or what? As I write this I hear Scott annoyingly pointing out, “Technically, it’s still summer. Fall starts on September 21st.”

I copied this poem into one of my notebooks last year, but I don’t think I ever posted it on this log. I love how the oak tree says to only eat fruits and vegetables.

Elegy with Apples, Pomegranates, Bees, Butterflies, Thorn Bushes, Oak, Pine, Warblers, Crows, Ants, and Worms
Hayan Charara – 1971-

The trees alongside the fence
bear fruit, the limbs and leaves speeches
to you and me. They promise to give the world
back to itself. The apple apologizes
for those whose hearts bear too much zest
for heaven, the pomegranate
for the change that did not come
soon enough. Every seed is a heart, every heart
a minefield, and the bees and butterflies
swarm the flowers on its grave.
The thorn bushes instruct us
to tell our sons and daughters
who carry sticks and stones
to mend their ways.
The oak tree says to eat
only fruits and vegetables;
the pine says to eat all the stirring things.
My neighbor left long ago and did not hear
any of this. In a big country
the leader warns the leader of a small country
there must be change or else.
Birds are the same way, coming and going,
wobbling thin branches.
The warblers express pain, the crows regret,
or is it the other way around?
The mantra today is the same as yesterday.
We must become different.
The plants must, the animals,
and the ants and worms, just like the carmakers,
the soap makers before them,
and the manufacturers of rubber
and the sellers of tea, tobacco, and salt.
Such an ancient habit, making ourselves new.
My neighbor looks like my mother
who left a long time ago
and did not hear any of this.
Just for a minute, give her back to me,
before she died, kneeling
in the dirt under the sun, calling me darling
in Arabic, which no one has since.

sept 15/RUN

2.1 miles
2 trails
62 degrees/humidity: 94%!

An organized run took over the path–marathon training. Trots of runners forcing me to aggressively claim my own space on the upper path. Sunny. Humid. Happy to turn down at the 44th street parking lot and take the lower trail. Hardly any traffic. Saw the shining river. Heard the water trickling out of the sewer pipe. Felt my legs getting stronger. Noticed how the leaning tree near the 38th street steps is still leaning. Forgot to check if the yarn is still dangling from it.

Searching for “leaning tree poetry” on google, I found this fabulous poem on the third page of results. This poem! I want to spend some time with it, thinking about knowing and writing and language and experience and how words do and don’t matter.

Learning the Trees
BY HOWARD NEMEROV

Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn
The language of the trees. That’s done indoors,
Out of a book, which now you think of it
Is one of the transformations of a tree.

The words themselves are a delight to learn,
You might be in a foreign land of terms
Like samara, capsule, drupe, legume and pome,
Where bark is papery, plated, warty or smooth.

But best of all are the words that shape the leaves—
Orbicular, cordate, cleft and reniform—
And their venation—palmate and parallel—
And tips—acute, truncate, auriculate.

Sufficiently provided, you may now
Go forth to the forests and the shady streets
To see how the chaos of experience
Answers to catalogue and category.

Confusedly. The leaves of a single tree
May differ among themselves more than they do
From other species, so you have to find,
All blandly says the book, “an average leaf.”

Example, the catalpa in the book
Sprays out its leaves in whorls of three
Around the stem; the one in front of you
But rarely does, or somewhat, or almost;

Maybe it’s not catalpa? Dreadful doubt.
It may be weeks before you see an elm
Fanlike in form, a spruce that pyramids,
A sweetgum spiring up in steeple shape.

Still, pedetemtim as Lucretius says,
Little by little, you do start to learn;
And learn as well, maybe, what language does
And how it does it, cutting across the world

Not always at the joints, competing with
Experience while cooperating with
Experience, and keeping an obstinate
Intransigence, uncanny, of its own.

Think finally about the secret will
Pretending obedience to Nature, but
Invidiously distinguishing everywhere,
Dividing up the world to conquer it,

And think also how funny knowledge is:
You may succeed in learning many trees
And calling off their names as you go by,
But their comprehensive silence stays the same.

sept 14/RUN

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
60 degrees

Saw my shadow, a roller skier, groups of runners, bikers, squirrels, dogs, the river. Heard the doppler effect on a runner’s radio and some rowers yelling on the river. Counted to 4: 1 2 3 4/ 1 2 3 4 Didn’t think about anything except running and breathing. Heard some people raking leaves in their yard across the boulevard. Lots of people–including me–wearing blue shirts.

Doppler Effect
Arthur Sze – 1950-

Stopped in cars, we are waiting to accelerate
along different trajectories. I catch the rising

pitch of a train—today one hundred nine people
died in a stampede converging at a bridge;

radioactive water trickles underground
toward the Pacific Ocean; nickel and copper

particulates contaminate the Brocade River.
Will this planet sustain ten billion people?

Ah, switch it: a spider plant leans toward
a glass door, and six offshoots dangle from it;

the more I fingered the clay slab into a bowl,
the more misshapen it became; though I have

botched this, bungled that, the errancies
reveal it would not be better if things happened

just as I wished; a puffer fish inflates on deck;
a burst of burnt rubber rises from pavement.

Doppler effect (noun):

a change in the frequency with which waves (as of sound or light) from a given source reach an observer when the source and the observer are in motion with respect to each other so that the frequency increases or decreases according to the speed at which the distance is decreasing or increasing. [Merriam Webster]

sept 13/RUN

4 miles
almost to franklin turn around
59 degrees

Such weird weather. Windy. Sunny then cloudy then misting then sunny again. Cool then warm then cool. Listened to my audio book (Once Upon a River) and avoided slow squirrels sauntering on the path. Felt strong and relaxed. Greeted the Daily Walker. Faintly heard some rowers in the gorge. Stepped on and over acorns and piles of fallen leaves littering the path. Occasionally glanced down at the river. Hard to see through all the green. Even when it was overcast and the sun was hidden, I glowed in my neon yellow 2018 10 mile race t-shirt.

Returning to my haibun route project. Started reading Lorine Niedecker’s Lake Superior for inspiration. Here’s an excerpt:

The journey of the rock is never ended. In every tiny part of any living thing are materials that once were rock that turned to soil. These minerals are drawn out of the soil by plant roots and the plant used them to build leaves, stems, flowers and fruits. Plants are eaten by animals. In our blood is iron from plants that draw it out of the soil. Your teeth and bones were once coral. The water you drink has been in clouds over the mountains of Asia and in waterfalls of Africa. The air you breathe has swirled thru places of the earth that no one has ever seen. Every bit of you is a bit of the earth and has been on many strange and wonderful journeys over countless millions of years.
page 7

sept 12/RUN

3.2 miles
ford bridge and back
59 degrees

Another good run, squeezed in between rain drops and thunder strikes. Strange weather today. It’s supposed to start storming soon. Ran south towards the falls this morning, partly for a change of pace, partly to check out if some of my favorite fall color trees have turned yellow yet, and partly to avoid running under all the thick tree limbs I encounter when heading north. Listened to my breathing instead of an audio book. Spent a lot of time counting to 4 as my feet struck the ground. No chants or spells today. Heard the water gushing! out of the sewer pipe below me. Thought about descending to the lower path and checking it out, but decided that running on the muddy trail would be the end of much of the white of my too white shoes. Encountered a few squirrels smart enough to not dart in front of me. Heard the wind howl, my shoes squeak on some wet leaves. Saw a few people walking. No roller skiers or runners or bikers.

For the past week, I’ve been hearing geese honk as they fly south. Not sure why, but I’m really enjoying these honks this year. I’ve probably posted this poem before, but I’m doing it again because I love it. A few years ago, I memorized it. I’ve lost some of the words, but never forget the harsh and exciting geese:

Wild Geese/mary oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

sept 11/RUN

5 miles
franklin loop
64 degrees
light rain

What a run! I haven’t run 5 miles in months. Loved running in the rain. At first, I was listening to my audio book, but after hearing the water gushing through the sewer pipe near the 36th street parking lot, I decided to listen to the rain instead. Not too long after I started running, I began making up little poems/chants. I did them in 4/4 because I wanted to get into a rhythm with a strong downbeat on my right leg. I kept doing them for most of the run. Here’s what I remember:

I am running
in the ra-in (which then became: in the cold/warm/soft rain)
will it stop now?
never again

Rain is falling
on my shoulder
rain is falling
on my knee

Rain is falling
on my elbow
and it’s dropping
from that tree

pitter patter
pitter patter
pitter patter
drip drip drop

pitter patter
pitter patter
drip drop drip drop
drip drop drip drop

There were more, but I can’t remember them now. I guess I should have stopped and recorded them on my phone. It was interesting how the verses shifted and become more rhythmic as I ran longer. Really cool and so much fun. No brilliant poems, but who cares?!

Today I noticed some leaves changing color. Just off the railing near the lake street bridge I spied some red–or was it orange? I’ll have to check–peeking through. On the St. Paul side, approaching Marshall, I noticed some more reddish-orange/orangish-red leaves blazing near the ground. The grayish light and the wet pavement made the colors seem more vivid, especially the bright orange construction sign.

I don’t think the rain ever stopped, which was fine with me. Very refreshing. Just a fine, steady drizzle–only a little more than a mist.

When I was done running, as I was walking through the tunnel of trees, I noticed a person perched up in a tree. Nestled in among the leaves, hovering above me, wedged in by the wooden fence. So strange. What were they doing there? Had a flash of panic, wondering if they would pounce on me, but they were content to stay hidden (and silent) in the tree.

I love how this poem is constructed entirely out of lines from a few different articles. I’d like to experiment with this form. Maybe something taken from the Mississippi River Gorge materials?

sept 10/RUN

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
70 degrees
humidity: 84%

Weird (almost) fall weather. Yesterday I had to wear so many more layers, today summer had returned. Humid and hot. Greeted the Daily Walker. Encountered other runners and walkers and bikers. No roller skiers on the path but I did see one on the street later when I took the dog for a walk. Listened to an audio book (Once Upon a River) and noticed the river and a spot in the tunnel of trees that opens up into an amphitheater of air–this spot is different than the one I tried to write about earlier in the summer. So spacious and airy and light–and still quite green. What color will it turn in the next month? Don’t remember noticing any non-green leaves. Today, with the sun so bright and warm, it’s hard to get excited about fall or winter. It feels like summer will never leave.

Reminded by someone on twitter of these great lines from Mary Oliver:

Sometimes/Mary Oliver (in Red Bird):

Instructions for living a life:
Pay Attention.
Be Astonished.
Tell about it.

Mannequin of the Day:

There’s something about this mannequin’s face that makes me think she really doesn’t give a fuck. She doesn’t even care that a ribbon is covering her cheek. It’s the eyes, right?

sept 9/RUN

1.5 miles
river road, north/south
60 degrees

Did a short run today in-between rain drops. It’s starting to look like fall. A few trees are losing leaves or turning red and yellow. Will there be bright orange this fall too? I hope so. In my 20s and 30s, I didn’t appreciate orange. Too bright or earthy or… orange. Green–darker, more muted–was my favorite. I still love green but I love orange now too. Is it because it was my mom’s favorite color? Maybe. I love bright oranges that glow unnaturally. And earthy, rusty oranges. It’s funny that I like orange now, when I can’t always see it because of my cone dystrophy. I’m thinking of getting some orange sneakers to wear this fall–not to run in, but just to wear and admire.

Right now I’m reading Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights and listening to podcast interviews with him and thinking about his ethics/politics/pedagogy of delight. So wonderful! Here’s one of his poems from a few years back:

Sorrow Is Not My Name
BY ROSS GAY

—after Gwendolyn Brooks
No matter the pull toward brink. No
matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.
There is a time for everything. Look,
just this morning a vulture
nodded his red, grizzled head at me,
and I looked at him, admiring
the sickle of his beak.
Then the wind kicked up, and,
after arranging that good suit of feathers
he up and took off.
Just like that. And to boot,
there are, on this planet alone, something like two
million naturally occurring sweet things,
some with names so generous as to kick
the steel from my knees: agave, persimmon,
stick ball, the purple okra I bought for two bucks
at the market. Think of that. The long night,
the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me
on the bus taking notes, yeah, yeah.
But look; my niece is running through a field
calling my name. My neighbor sings like an angel
and at the end of my block is a basketball court.
I remember. My color’s green. I’m spring.
—for Walter Aikens

“there are, on this planet alone, something like two/million naturally occurring sweet things,/some with names so generous as to kick/the steel from my knees…”

sept 8/RUN

4 miles
almost to franklin bridge turn around
54 degrees
light rain

Ran in the rain. Just a light drizzle that I could barely feel. Nice. Listened to an audio book. Forgot to check if there were any stones stacked on the boulder. Looked for, but couldn’t find, the forest floor. Still too many leaves. Noticed a few changing colors, turning yellow. Thought I heard some cheering from the gorge. A rowing competition? Passed the Daily Walker, good morning-ed him on the way back. Worked on lifting my head, straightening my back. Saw a few squirrels, a dog, a roller skier, bikers, runners, walkers–lots of people out in the rain. Didn’t really see the river, only an occasional flash of white through the trees. I loved my run this morning.

Found this poem this morning while searching for the subject “september” on poets.org. Thinking about my mom and the 10th anniversary of her death at the end of this month. I deeply feel this profit and loss in my own grief and also the idea of not trying to assess it or to reconcile the feeling of loss with the unexpected joys it has brought–like a deeper appreciation of the woods or a football game or, in my case, the leaves in the gorge. The more I read this poem, the more I love it. Such a beautiful way to express the process of learning to live with grief.

Mannequin of the day:

Is the white in the middle of the pupil just because the paint is wearing off, or is it an artistic effort to indicate life/a spark/a soul within?

I find delight (reading Ross Gay’s wonderful, The Book of Delights, I’m trying to be better about claiming my own quirky delights) in this mannequin and her continued (and improbable) presence at the State Fair in a space barely touched by progress where the amateur is celebrated and beauty is never slicked up. Every year, walking into the creative activities building and seeing these cracked, faded, weathered mannequins still adorned in handmade hats and coats and scarves and sweaters, looking creepy and odd, I am delighted–and not in an ironic, hipster way. Here, the ugly and old and outdated have a space. I think I’m almost able to articulate this delight, but not quite. I’ll keep working at it. Something about how these mannequins represent resistance to the relentless need (by capitalism) to constantly change things to make them better! and newer! and prettier! and, in doing so, erase/remove/destroy those things which don’t fit their vision of better/newer/prettier. I love things that are ugly and overlooked and unsettling.

sept 7/RUNSWIM

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
58 degrees

A great run! A cooler temp makes all the difference for me. What do I remember? Walking towards the river, listening to the electric hum of the bugs, the cawing of the crows, the rumble of the garbage truck. Seeing so many bright colors today–glowing yellowish green and orange shirts, aquamarine and hot pink shorts. Encountering a few roller skiers, a rollerblader, groups of runners, a water station set-up not too far from the overlook. Hearing the rowers on the river. Admiring the sparkling sun on the water, just barely cutting through the thick curtain of leaves.

Still Burning
BY GERALD STERN

Me trying to understand say whence
say whither, say what, say me with a pencil walking,
say reading the dictionary, say learning medieval
Latin, reading Spengler, reading Whitehead,
William James I loved him, swimming breaststroke
and thinking for an hour, how did I get here?
Or thinking in line, say the 69 streetcar
or 68 or 67 Swissvale,
that would take me elsewhere, me with a textbook
reading the pre-Socratics, so badly written,
whoever the author was, me on the floor of
the lighted stacks sitting cross-legged,
walking afterwards through the park or sometimes
running across the bridges and up the hills,
sitting down in our tiny diningroom,
burning in a certain way, still burning.

I love the linking of thinking with moving here–swimming, walking, running.

Mannequin of the day:

I am always fascinated by the eyes in these mannequins–the little bit of white in the corner of the pupil and the curls veiling the one eye. The way her pupils are shifted up and to the side. What is she looking at? Is it my shoulder? One of the first things the ophthalmologist told me when I was diagnosed with cone dystrophy was that I’d need to learn to look just past people’s shoulders if I wanted to see their faces. Once my central vision was gone, I would only be able to see them through my peripheral. How unsettling is it to others to look at them this way? I do not look at people’s shoulders…yet. For now, I either avoid looking or I just stare into their dim, fading, dead-pupil faces and pretend that they don’t look like a lifeless mannequin.

swim: .9 miles (1600 yards)
lake nokomis

Guess who got to swim in Lake Nokomis this afternoon? Me! When I got back from my run, I found out that the lake was open again (after being closed due to some kid pooping in the water and spreading e-coli and getting several dozens of other people sick…boo). I didn’t think I’d be able to swim in this lake again this year. Now I get to give a proper good-bye. Hopefully, I’ll be able to swim in it more times this week. With my wetsuit I’ll keep swimming until they won’t let me or there’s ice or I decide I”m over it. Open swimming is the best! The water was calm. Everything was a dull, light gray except for the trees on the other side. Already starting to turn slightly. Light green and yellow. After the swim, headed over to sandcastle with Scott for a beer and some fries. Does it get any better than this?

sept 5/RUN

3.6 miles
river road, north/lake st bridge/marshall hill/east river road, south/lake st bridge/river road, south
65 degrees

Was planning to swim today at Lake Harriet but it seems too cold. Maybe tomorrow? Ran instead. Decided to tackle a hill. Made it over to the St. Paul for the first time in a while. A few leaves are already changing color. Nice and cool, breezy without any sun. Feeling stronger in my runs. At the end, finally saw the Daily Walker again! Has it been a month since I saw him last?

Sharon Olds, from The Gold Cell

I am doing something I learned early to do, I am
paying attention to small beauties,
whatever I have–as if it were our duty to
find things to love, to bind ourselves to this world.

Today’s mannequin:

Looked up uncanny valley and found this definition: “a distinctive dip in the relationship between human-likeness and emotional response.” What makes us human? Or, what makes us see each other as human, makes us feel empathy for each other? Is it the eyes? The pupils? The spark within that black ball?

I have trouble seeing people’s pupils. Can I ever see that spark? Do I imagine one? Sometimes everyone feels like a mannequin to me. Not quite human. Not alive or there. And sometimes mannequins feel human, like this girl.

sept 4/RUN

3.5 miles
two trails +
63 degrees

What a great run! Love the cooler weather. Ran faster without more effort. Listened to a playlist while up above because I needed to forget the difficulty of getting a girl to go to school. Ran past the double bridge and the ford bridge, almost to the falls then turned around. Took off my headphones when I reached the turn for the lower trail. Heard kids on the playground up above, an occasional acorn dropping below, the almost gushing water at the second sewer pipe. Glanced at the river. No shimmers or sparkles only blue glass. Smiled at all the people I encountered. No roller skiers. No fat tires. No little old lady in a straw hat. A few dogs. Some squirrels above me, in the trees. No brilliant thoughts, but no worries either.

Thinking about faces and recognition and my inability to stare deeply into someone’s eyes and see anything but a blur or lifeless pupils. Found this poem:

When We Look Up
Denise Levertov – 1923-1997

He had not looked,
pitiful man whom none

pity, whom all
must pity if they look

into their own face (given
only by glass, steel, water
barely known) all
who look up

to see-how many
faces? How many

seen in a lifetime? (Not those that flash by, but those

into which the gaze wanders
and is lost

and returns to tell
Here is a mystery,

a person, an
other, an I?

sept 3/RUN

2.5 miles
two trails
70 degrees
humidity: 77%

First day of school. No drama this morning. A little sad to say goodbye to the summer, but happy for the fall. Ready for cooler, crisper air than what I got this morning. Still, a nice run. The sun was sparkling on the river. I’d like to start collecting descriptions of what the sun looks like as it shines on the water. I’m tired of sparkling or dancing or shimmering or glimmering. What other expressions can I find? Was surprised to not hear the water trickling out of one of the sewer pipes, especially after all the rain last night. The other one was almost gushing. The tree trunk is still leaning near the 38th street steps, with its yellow and pink yarn dangling down. The path wasn’t too muddy for my (too) bright white shoes. Don’t remember thinking much of anything except that I felt relaxed and happy to be out on the path on this beautiful day.

I’m excited about the new project I’m working on about my vision, eye contact, faces, and mannequins. A primary question guiding it is: What makes us human? Exploring how this is often understood in terms of seeing and connecting through faces/facial recognition. While thinking about it earlier this morning, I encountered this beautiful poem:

AND SWEPT ALL VISIBLE SIGNS AWAY/carl phillips

Easy enough, to say it’s dark now.
But what is the willow doing in the darkness?
I say it wants less for company than for compassion,

which can come from afar and faceless. What’s a face, to a willow?
If a willow had a face, it would be a song. I think.
I am stirred, I’m stir-able, I’m a wind-stirred thing.

the song would go…But there
is no song. As there is no face. There’s just the willow
as willow. Nothing but itself. Its shadow meaningless

except to those who want for shade,
and find it there. Who keep finding they hardly
care anymore–almost, some days, as if they’d never cared–

about connection. Green as water, the willow’s motion. Green as oblivion,
the willow’s indifference–flecked with a little gold, some blue.

september 2/RUN

3 miles
trestle turn around
64 degrees
humidity: 85%

Back home. Last day before school starts for the kids. Heard the rowers on the river, geese traveling south above my head. Spotted a fat tire, a roller skier, several runners. No Daily Walker or man in black. Made sure to look at the river, but forgot to check out the floodplain forest. Noticed that there were no stones stacked on top of the ancient boulder. Smelled an over-filled porta potty. Whacked my elbow on a tree, running too close to it. As my vision declines, I have started to run into more things. Chanted in 3s: raspberry, blueberry, strawberry. Tried to think of other 3 syllable words as I ran: mystery, ambitious, remember, September, decadent, difficult. Tried to unsuccessfully remember the words to “try to remember”:

Try to remember the kind of September,
When life was slow and oh so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September,
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September,
When you were a tender and callow fellow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow (follow) follow (follow) follow

My godfather sang this at my mom’s funeral almost 10 years ago. Will this month–her death month–be difficult this year?

Also attempted to recite Silverstein’s “Sick.” All I could remember was: “I cannot go to school today/said little Peggy Ann McKay/I have the measles and the mumps/a gash, a rash and purple bumps…”

Here’s some lines from a poem that I love:

from “Poplar Street“/Chen Chen

Sometimes, parents & children

become the most common strangers. Eventually,
a street appears where they can meet again.

august 28/RUN

3 miles
trestle turn around
60 degrees

Windy. Cool. Fall is coming, then winter and winter running! Very sad to be done with open water swimming but ready for routines and kids in school and cooler weather and layers and colorful leaves and creepy Halloween yards and cold clear air and no more itchy dogs. A good run this morning. My leg felt tight 2 miles in so I walked for a minute. Tried to look at the river but the one time I remembered, it was too hard to see. Smelled someone smoking pot below me in the gorge. Saw the man in black–not in black but in shorts. I recognized him by his extra long legs. No Daily Walker. No roller skiers. Not too many runners or walkers. No rowers or squirrels or soaring birds or shadows. I don’t remember seeing my shadow for a long time–where’d she go?

Just found this awesome video of Bruce Lee talking about being like water. Yes!

transcript (lines breaks by me)

Empty your mind. Be
formless shapeless
like water
now you put
water into a cup
it becomes the cup you put
water into a bottle
it becomes the bottle you put
it into a tea pot
it becomes the tea pot
now water can flow or it can
craaaaasshh
be water my friend

It’s interesting that the title of this video is “be as water” when Bruce Lee says be water. I like it better when it’s not a simile.

august 27/RUN

2.5 miles
two trails
59 degrees

Woke up too tired this morning. Running helped a lot. Windy and cooler. Starting at 8:15, there are lots of cars. Such a crowded parkway! A few runners, some bikers, at least 2 roller skiers. Listened to an audio book up above, the water coming out of the sewer below. At the first pipe, it was a quiet, steady stream. At the second, a little louder and faster. Thought about my breathing and locking it into a rhythm that would keep me steady. 1 2 3/45 up hill and 5 4 3/21 down hill then 1234/5678 Slowly, I’ve been working on poems that mimic my breathing while swimming and running.

This morning I read an essay by Jericho Brown in which he describes his invention of the duplex form. He writes:

I decided to call the form a duplex because something about its repetition and its couplets made me feel like it was a house with two addresses. It is, indeed, a mutt of a form as so many of us in this nation are only now empowered to live fully in all of our identities. I wanted to highlight the trouble of a wall between us who live within a single structure. What happens when that wall is up and what happens when we tear it down? How will we live together? Will we kill each other? Can we be more careful?

At the end of the essay, he lists the rules of the form:

Write a ghazal that is also a sonnet that is also a blues poem of 14 lines, giving each line 9 to 11 syllables.

The first line is echoed in the last line.

The second line of the poem should change our impression of the first line in an unexpected way.

The second line is echoed and becomes the third line.

The fourth line of the poem should change our impression of the third line in an unexpected way.

This continues until the penultimate line becomes the first line of the couplet that leads to the final (and first) line.

For the variations of repeated lines, it is useful to think of the a a’ b scheme of the blues form.

And here’s an example from his latest book, The Tradition:

JERICHO BROWN
DUPLEX (I BEGIN WITH LOVE)

I begin with love, hoping to end there.
I don’t want to leave a messy corpse.

   I don’t want to leave a messy corpse
   Full of medicines that turn in the sun.

Some of my medicines turn in the sun.
Some of us don’t need hell to be good.

   Those who need least, need hell to be good.
   What are the symptoms of your sickness?

Here is one symptom of my sickness:
Men who love me are men who miss me.

   Men who leave me are men who miss me
   In the dream where I am an island.

In the dream where I am an island,
I grow green with hope. I’d like to end there.

august 26/RUN

3.2 miles
trestle turn around
65 degrees

Cooler. Breezier. Overcast. Too many cars rushing past me on the road. Listened to my audio book for a while then took out my headphones. Played chicken with a woman running up by the lake street bridge. I was running to the right, furthest from zooming bikes that might be coming up the hill behind me, she was to the left, also hugging the rail. She wouldn’t move, probably because she was oblivious. I wouldn’t move either because I’m stubborn and need rules, like always stay to the right, because my eyes don’t always work and I can’t see if someone is coming. I was prepared to run into her if she didn’t move, which I recognize is somewhat ridiculous but I get really angry when people don’t pay attention in these simple ways. As someone who can’t always see, other people’s refusal to care can be dangerous. The good news: just a minute or two after that, I completely forgot about it and enjoyed the rest of my run. Didn’t stop to walk at all and looked at the river at least once, but forgot to check if there were any stacked stones on the big old boulder.

I love this poem. I love Maggie Smith. Her mix of joy and grief is so great. So much I love about this poem. Here’s a list:

the focus on lists and their connection to and
lists of not quite grievances, lists of things loved
describing a fear of death as not wanting to be in the dirt
the desire for two parts bees humming to one part bee sting
idea of repetitions and a workout
rhyming hum with tongue
the flow of the couplets

Let’s Not Begin/Maggie Smith

Let’s not begin the poem with and,
though it begins that way

in spirit: one in a long list of—
let’s not call them grievances.

I’m trying to love the world,
I am, but is it too much

to ask for two parts bees
vibrating their cups of pollen,

humming a perfect A note,
to one part sting?

Worry and console, worry
and console: it’s how I stay

in shape. See, I’m sweating.
Some nights my daughter cries,

I don’t want to be in the dirt,
and this is what I call a workout.

My heart’s galloping hell
and gone from the paddock—

I don’t want to be in the dirt
because I’ll miss you—

and there’s no stopping me.
But let’s not end

with the heart as horse,
fear-lathered, spooked deaf.

I’m trying, I am, for her.
If I list everything I love

about the world, and if the list
is long and heavy enough,

I can lift it over and over—
repetitions, they’re called, reps—

to keep my heart on, to keep
the dirt off. Let’s begin

with bees, and the hum,
and the honey singing

on my tongue, and the child
sleeping at last, and, and, and—

august 25/RUN

3 miles
two trails

What do I remember from my run today? Noticed the water came out of the sewer pipe in quick bursts. No gurgling or gushing just spurting. Watched the river through the trees–beautiful. The leaning trunk was still there. Lots of bikers and runners. No roller skiers on the trail but one on the road, after I was finished. No rowers–why not? No huge groups of runners–the most I saw together was three.

Three Songs at the End of Summer
Jane Kenyon – 1947-1995

A second crop of hay lies cut
and turned. Five gleaming crows
search and peck between the rows.
They make a low, companionable squawk,
and like midwives and undertakers
possess a weird authority.

Crickets leap from the stubble,
parting before me like the Red Sea.
The garden sprawls and spoils.

Across the lake the campers have learned
to water-ski. They have, or they haven’t.
Sounds of the instructor’s megaphone
suffuse the hazy air. “Relax! Relax!”

Cloud shadows rush over drying hay,
fences, dusty lane, and railroad ravine.
The first yellowing fronds of goldenrod
brighten the margins of the woods.

Schoolbooks, carpools, pleated skirts;
water, silver-still, and a vee of geese.

The cicada’s dry monotony breaks
over me. The days are bright
and free, bright and free.

Then why did I cry today
for an hour, with my whole
body, the way babies cry?

A white, indifferent morning sky,
and a crow, hectoring from its nest
high in the hemlock, a nest as big
as a laundry basket….
In my childhood
I stood under a dripping oak,
while autumnal fog eddied around my feet,
waiting for the school bus
with a dread that took my breath away.

The damp dirt road gave off
this same complex organic scent.

I had the new books—words, numbers,
and operations with numbers I did not
comprehend—and crayons, unspoiled
by use, in a blue canvas satchel
with red leather straps.

Spruce, inadequate, and alien
I stood at the side of the road.
It was the only life I had.

This poem! I’ve read it before but I don’t think I’ve posted it here. I would love to write an homage (poem or lyric essay) to this. Maybe tomorrow? Love so much about this poem. Right now: Across the lake the campers have learned/ to water-ski. They have, or they haven’t.

august 23/RUN

2.5 miles
two trails

A nice morning. Listened to my playlist up above and felt fast. Listened to the gorge on the lower trail. The river was glowing through the trees. I think the tree trunk was still leaning by the 38th street steps, but I can’t quite remember. Surely I would have noticed if it were gone?

august 22/RUNSWIM

3 miles
trestle turn around
63 degrees

Brand new too white running shoes this morning. My favorites: Saucony Grid Cohesions. Started on version 4 (I think), am now on 11. Cheap and dependable. Thought about upgrading but I’m too frugal. Also, when I buy expensive shoes, I feel pressure for them to be perfect–they better be, if I spend $120 on them, I think. Usually this ends with me wearing shoes that don’t quite work for too long because I spent so much money on them. So inexpensive grid cohesions it is. They worked well today.

Started with an audio book but decided to turn it off and listen to my feet striking the ground–was I plodding too much? Also got to hear the intense, quiet rush of traffic as people hurrying off to work. Chanted some three syllable words, mostly strawberry and raspberry. Didn’t look at the river even once. Barely noticed the lake street bridge or the overlook above the rowing club or the railroad trestle. I guess I was thinking too much about the run and how my legs were sore. I do remember looking to see if anyone was sleeping behind the bench, near the bridge. Sometimes people do in the summer. One time I saw someone sleeping on the hard, uneven paving stones under the bridge. Ouch. Encountered some walkers, no regulars. No Daily Walker. No roller skiers or rollerbladers. Any other runners? At least one, running much faster than me.

I like the form of this poem and how each stanza ends with an introduction to the next stanza. I want to experiment with it.

Seek/ Sophia Holtz

the moon is a cataract that can’t see rats
chewing bone-filled trash, the satellites
passing above us making maps
of everything we touch. a machine

recognizes a human face, I forget
everyone’s names, & somewhere
a man is making a list of threats
he’s calling law. sometimes while I walk

I look for places where I could hide
because once or twice in my life
a man has tried to follow me home.
certain games are practical,

the way animals gnaw on what’s inedible
so they’ll become better knives.
at work, the children are playing
in an open space, all of them hiding

behind a trashcan, the game more ritual
than search, but it also reminds me
of towns likely burned to the ground
before they were emptied, or at the very least

erased from the map. if you’re small
your best trick is to become invisible.
even insects know this: how many
generations for a moth to resemble lichen.

swim: 1.7 miles
cedar lake

The final open swim of the season. As always, it’s difficult to believe that another year is done. A beautiful evening, a beautiful lake. So pleased that I was able to swim five days in a row. Breathed every five and five/six/five. Heard some planes, felt lots of scratchy, sharp water weeds. Checked out the opposite shore–I think it’s hidden beach. Really nice.

august 21/RUN

2.2 miles
lake harriet

Ran this morning around lake harriet with Scott while our son was taking his 2nd of 3 behind the wheel driving lessons. So great! The water was still, glass-like. Near where all the boats are docked (would you call this a marina?), the water was smooth for 10-15 meters, then suddenly rippled. What was causing this? Noticed a beach with a big swimming area that I’ll have to try out next week before the lake closes for the season. After we finished, had breakfast at Bread and Pickle, something I wanted to do for a few years. Heard a kid jubilantly call out, “I just saw a fish! A Northern Pike! Right there! Right there!” Such wonderful enthusiasm. O, to be so unabashed in my joy! A goal for this year. I’m tired of cynicism and swallowing the quirky joy I have for so many small and random things like garden gnomes and undulating waves and bright, glowing green running shoes!

Halos/ed bok lee

Blood vessels are invading
both corneas, crowding
the sclera, says my opthamologist.

Not an emergency yet, but
just be aware and get proper rest. I ask
about laser surgery and he sighs; confesses

when his own eyes are shot, he’ll
surgically insert acrylic lenses.
Two slits, no stitches, fifteen minutes.

With lasers, you’ll still need
readers and eye drops. On my walk
home, I take off

my glasses to receive the breeze.
I like that any nearing face
is surely smiling, gorgeous;

each blurry body’s aura numinous:
style of no style, racially
ambigious, a glob, pure

spectral inchoesion. Aren’t we all
just masses of energy and light
approaching or leaving

one another in the jumbled
future or past; sometimes stop-
ping to embrace

for a moment or decades,
before passing
way too far for sight?

That visual impairment improves hearing,
taste, smell, touch is mostly myth.
With it, however, I can detect

fuzzy spirits exiting buildings;
halos around bikers’ helmets;
each streetlamp another pink-orange dawn.

You should see the full moon
spanning half the skyline.
I don’t mind opening a book

like a pewter Rorschach test,
or waking up each morning
inside a fish tank of dream.

I like, whenever I wish, strolling past
the myopic me
in a window or mirror or whatever

reflects back to believe the soul is
ubiquitous like water
in our voices, our cells.

How else, when blinded by life,
would I remember:
to the dead, we’re the ghosts?

This poem captures so much of what I’ve been feeling about my vision and the magic of seeing differently–out of focus, fuzzy. Often, I like the strangeness of my sight; everything is more beautiful. I was mentioning to Scott the other day that I see things through a soft filter, like the one they used for filming Barbara Walters on The View. But even as I love the soft, generous way my vision enables me to see the world, sometimes, it’s exhausting, overwhelming. Walking around the Mall of America the other day, I was unable to see the hard edged outlines of peoples’ moving bodies. Difficult to navigate. Entering a store, I couldn’t immediately read the signs to orient myself, everything just out of focus.

swim: 1.5 miles
cedar lake

This final week of getting to swim every day is wonderful. Cedar Lake is the best. Looked it up and discovered that at its deepest point, it’s 88 feet. On average, it’s 37 feet. Cool. Felt strong and fast swimming today. More choppy water. More people to pass. As I neared the buoys, it always felt like I was swimming in place or swimming away from the buoy. A bit disorienting. I think there was a current that was pushing both me and the buoy away from each other–is that possible? Discovered an easy way to sight the shore that is invisible in the blinding sun: there’s a clear break in the trees that I can see no matter how bright and shiny everything else is. Breathed every five, then five/six/five. Took a few short breaks at the end of a loop but mostly swam non-stop. I wish there was another month of this swimming–hard to wait until next June for it to happen again.

august 20/RUNSWIM

3 miles
two trails

Another good run. Down below, on the way back north on the lower trail, I noticed how the first sewer drain I ran by vigorously trickled while the second one sporadically gushed. Heard a bird making the classic bird call through the trees, deep in the gorge, that I imagine when I think of a bird chirping in a forest. So bird. Didn’t take the steps at 38th street again and planned to continue on to the gravel hill just past the social justice keys but took a wrong turn at the fork in the trail and ended up climbing sooner, conveniently right by the water fountain at the 36th street parking lot.

Yesterday I posted a poem with a wonderful use of the word O. (O, to take what we love inside/to carry within us an orchard, to eat/not only the skin, but the shade,/not only the sugar, but the days, to hold/the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into/the round jubilance of peach.) So when I saw a poem that takes on the O even more, I wanted to post it. I love the unbridled enthusiasm of an O! (and of the exclamation mark!!)

O, She Says
BY HAILEY LEITHAUSER

O, she says (because she loves to say O),
O to this cloud-break that ravels the night,
O to this moon, its mouthful of sorrow,
O shallow grass and the nettle burr’s bite,

O to heart’s flare, its wobbly satellite,
O step after step in stumbling tempo,
O owl in oak, O rout of black bat flight,
(O moaned in Attic and Esperanto)

O covetous tongue, O fat fandango,
O gnat tango in the hot, ochered light,
O wind whirred leaves in subtle inferno,
O flexing of sea, O stars bolted tight,

O ludicrous swoon, O blind hindsight,
O torching of bridges and blood boiled white,
O sparrow and arrow and hell below,
O, she says, because she loves to say O.

swim: 1.3 miles
cedar lake

Another great swim! I am really enjoying how much smaller cedar lake is. I heard someone say a loop is 600 yards. It’s easier to swim longer and farther and faster. The water was choppy again, which is great. I love battling the waves. I had no problem swimming straight today and had fun passing people.

august 19/RUNSWIM

3 miles
two trails +
59 degrees
humidity: 85%

Ran up above listening to another audio book, down below listening to a bird, my breathing and water gurgling out of the sewer–not gushing or rushing, falling? When I got to the leaning tree trunk and the 38th street steps I didn’t go up but stayed on the lower trail. No mud, only dirt, an occasional stone and wildflowers. Not too overgrown. Think I could see my breath as it hit the sunlight streaking through the trees–was this because of steamy humidity? Ran past the railing where the keys with social justice messages painted on them used to hang and up the gravel hill to the paved path, near the overlook, the welcoming oaks and the two old boulders. No stacked stones on the taller one. Saw the dark-haired woman I usually pass and the old lady in the straw hat. She wasn’t listening to any TED talks today.

From Blossoms
BY LI-YOUNG LEE

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

O, what a poem! I want to spend some time memorizing these lines so I can remember them when I need them. I want to carry within me an orchard and live from joy to joy to joy!

swim: 1 miles
cedar lake

A great evening for a swim. The water was choppy, which I liked. The sun was blinding, which I didn’t. Again, couldn’t see anything on the way back to the start except for an opening in the trees which I determined was where the beach was. So I swam straight towards it and was right. When I was done, I swam through the swimming area. Suddenly it got much darker below me–is it deeper? The attitude at the lake is more laid back than at Nokomis. Kayaks in the swimming area, a dog swimming out to greet the swimmers as they made their way to the first buoy, lifeguards sitting in camp chairs. Surprisingly, it didn’t bother me. Next year I will try to make it to more of these cedar lake swims. Almost forgot: too many scratchy, pesky vines floating in the water, getting tangled on my shoulders, in my fingers as they entered the water.

august 18/SWIM

2 miles
cedar lake

Open swim is over at Lake Nokomis but it’s still happening at Cedar Lake. So glad I found out how great it is to swim at Cedar. Next year I’ll have to swim here more often. Starting my swim, I couldn’t see at all. No landmarks–no roofs of big buildings or light poles. Only trees. Just swimming into the void of blueish gray water. Luckily I had lined up the buoys before I left so I was okay. The water was opaque and warm enough. Only a few bits of milfoil reaching out to grab my arm. These water weeds are surprisingly scratchy on your skin. It was mostly cloudy. A few times the sun broke through, other times the clouds darkened. On the second half of my last lap it suddenly became very choppy. I love swimming into the waves! Felt strong and fast, then tired. A nice, glowing burn even now an hour later. Overheard one woman say she was leaving soon for Maine to swim there–was it for a race? Not sure. My breathing was mostly every five, sometimes every 3, sometimes 3 then 4 on repeat or five then six. Didn’t see any fish or hear any planes.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1T2uAgnxPd

In all of my searches for “lakes” or “water,” how have I never encountered this poem before? Love how she captures the reverse world that water creates!

Water Picture
May Swenson – 1913-1989

In the pond in the park
all things are doubled:
Long buildings hang and
wriggle gently. Chimneys
are bent legs bouncing
on clouds below. A flag
wags like a fishhook
down there in the sky.

The arched stone bridge
is an eye, with underlid
in the water. In its lens
dip crinkled heads with hats
that don’t fall off. Dogs go by,
barking on their backs.
A baby, taken to feed the
ducks, dangles upside-down,
a pink balloon for a buoy.

Treetops deploy a haze of
cherry bloom for roots,
where birds coast belly-up
in the glass bowl of a hill;
from its bottom a bunch
of peanut-munching children
is suspended by their
sneakers, waveringly.

A swan, with twin necks
forming the figure 3,
steers between two dimpled
towers doubled. Fondly
hissing, she kisses herself,
and all the scene is troubled:
water-windows splinter,
tree-limbs tangle, the bridge
folds like a fan.

august 16/RUN

3 miles
trestle turn around
64 degrees
humidity: 90%/dew point: 62

Sometimes, less often in the last year, when I wake up I feel regret or shame about some intangible thing that I didn’t actually do. This makes me uneasy until I’ve fully woken up and restored my sense of exuberance. Usually a run or a walk or just being outside helps. Today, running while listening to Lizzo, worked. Ran by the welcoming oaks, through the tunnel of trees, which isn’t really a tunnel but 2 walls of green, past the old stone steps. Heard a dog barking deeply and persistently in the gorge. Felt strong running up the hill after the lake street bridge. Wanted to sing along with Lizzo being 100% that bitch but didn’t. Smiled at several runners and walkers. Didn’t see the river. Avoided a stupid squirrel. Tried to keep my shoulders relaxed and my right arm swinging as much as my left.

Saw this poem on Instagram. The poet, Crystal Williams, offers this explanation for why she wrote it:

“Many years ago I heard someone describe Aretha Franklin’s voice as the voice of God, which was an amazing thing to say. This meditation is my attempt at understanding why that statement struck me as profoundly true. In the end, Aretha’s voice is an aggregation of the choruses of the natural world—all of their harmony, complexity, and distinctiveness—and it is as close to the divine as I can imagine.”

I really love her description of the divine here: the aggregation of the choruses of the natural world

The Voice of God
Crystal Williams

      Poem for Aretha Franklin

when she opens her mouth
our world swells like dawn on the pond
when the sun licks the water & the jay garbles,
the whole quiet thing coming into tune,
the gnats, frogs, the dandelion pollen, the
pebbles & leaves & the whole world of us
sitting at the throat of the jay
dancing in the throat of the jay
all of us on the lip of the jay
singing doowop, doowop, do.

august 15/RUN

3 miles
two trails
63 degrees

A nice and easy run. Cooler. Not too much sun. Not that crowded. Didn’t see the little old lady shuffling by that I’ve been writing about but I did encounter a woman I’ve seen at least 2 or 3 times before who walks the opposite way I run. While I start by running south on the upper trail, north on the lower trail, she starts north on the upper trail and south on the lower. I get to greet her twice. Don’t remember much about the upper path run, but I remember noticing how bright and glowing the river was below me on the lower trail. Heard some roller ski poles clicking-clacking. A car horn aggressively honking–at least 5 or 6 times. Some bikers talking. The leaning tree trunk is still leaning near the 38th street steps. After taking them up and running north, I noticed 3 rocks stacked on the ancient boulder near the tunnel of trees.

On the Dirt Path Near Folwell Avenue Haibun
Sara Puotinen

Even if you try to time it just right when you climb the steep, short hill up to the dirt packed path, you cannot avoid the swarming swath of sex-crazed gnats or the little old lady slowly shuffling by, swinging her hiking poles, a voice TED-talking out of her phone’s speaker reminding you that this is why we are all here. Do not bother the bench resting on the rim of the gorge to ask what this is. If looking through the thickly thatched oak leaves to gather glimpses of the silvery river sparkling in the morning sun doesn’t already answer everything, the bench certainly won’t be able to help.

Bugs and old ladies
wake up early in June but
so does the river.

august 14/BIKERUN

bike: 8.5 miles
lake nokomis

A great ride early in the morning before it was too crowded. Thing I remember most: not once but twice some dumb squirrel darted out right in front of my bike, forcing me to use my brakes. I hate squirrels.

run: 2.7 miles
two trails

Such a beautiful morning! Not too hot or windy or humid. Decided to do a quick run even though I’d already biked to the lake and walked around it. Up above, encountered at least one roller skier, some bikers, a dog and their human, a few other runners. Down below, an unleashed dog running ahead of its owners, a few solitary walkers. Watched the river out of the corner of my eye. Avoided muddy, mucky leaves. Ran cautiously under the leaning, yarn-bombed tree trunk.

swim: 1 mile
cedar lake

Finally decided to try out open swim at Cedar Lake. I’ve never been because it’s a lot farther from my house. Really wonderful. Not too many people there, which was great. Smaller loops–not sure, but I think a loop was 400-500 yards? (instead of 1200 at Lake Nokomis). I liked mixing it up with smaller loops. Easier to not get off track even when you couldn’t see, which I couldn’t on the way back because of the sun. Why are so many of the beaches east/west, with one way always being in the sun? No big, crazy beach filled with too many people. Found out after I finished swimming that the rest of lake nokomis open swims will be at cedar. It’s very sad to be done for the season at nokomis without being able to say goodbye to the lake but I’m glad I can still swim–if I can make it over to Cedar. It’s about a 16-18 mile bike ride round trip. Breathed every five strokes. Felt strong and fast and free.

Lake Water/ David Ferry

It is a summer afternoon in October.
I am sitting on a wooden bench, looking out
At the lake through a tall screen of evergreens,
Or rather, looking out across the plane of the lake,
Seeing the light shaking upon the water
As if it were a shimmering of heat.
Yesterday, when I sat here, it was the same,
The same displaced out-of-season effect.
Seen twice it seemed a truth was being told.
Some of the trees I can see across the lake
Have begun to change, but it is as if the air
Had entirely given itself over to summer,
With the intention of denying its own proper nature.
There is a breeze perfectly steady and persistent
Blowing in toward shore from the other side
Or from the world beyond the other side.
The mild sound of the little tapping waves
The breeze has caused—there’s something infantile
About it, a baby at the breast. The light
Is moving and not moving upon the water.
The breeze picks up slightly but still steadily,
The increase in the breeze becomes the mild
Dominant event, compelling with sweet oblivious
Authority alterations in light and shadow,
Alterations in the light of the sun on the water,
Which becomes at once denser and more quietly
Excited, like a concentration of emotions
That had been dispersed and scattered and now were not.
Then there’s the mitigation of the shadow of a cloud,
Phrases and even sentences are written,
But because of the breeze, and the turning of the year,
And the sense that this lake water, as it is being
Experienced on a particular day, comes from
Some source somewhere, beneath, within, itself,
Or from somewhere else, nearby, a spring, a brook,
Its pure origination somewhere else,
It is like an idea for a poem not yet written
And maybe never to be completed, because
The surface of the page is like lake water,
That takes back what is written on its surface,
And all my language about the lake and its
Emotions or its sweet obliviousness,
Or even its being like an origination,
Is all erased with the changing of the breeze
Or because of the heedless passing of a cloud. When, moments after she died, I looked into
Her face, it was as untelling as something natural,
A lake, say, the surface of it unreadable,
Its sources of meaning unrndable anymore.
Her mouth was open as if she had something to say;
But maybe my saying so is a figure of speech.

I’d like to read this poem several more times. Wow, that ending!

august 13/RUN

2.4 miles
two trails
62 degrees

Slightly cooler this morning. Noticed the river sparkling in the sun. Saw the old woman in the straw hat sitting on the bench that I’m writing about in my most recent haibun as I ran south, but by the time I turned around and reached the bench again she was gone. No rowers. No roller skiers. Not many bikes or runners. A few walkers. Only the leaning, yarn-bombed trunk is here.

note: No open swim tonight due to bad water quality. No!!! Hopefully the lake won’t be closed for the rest of the season. What a bummer.

When I Am Asked/ LISEL MUELLER

When I am asked
how I began writing poems,
I talk about the indifference of nature.

It was soon after my mother died,
a brilliant June day,
everything blooming.

I sat on a gray stone bench
in a lovingly planted garden,
but the day lilies were as deaf
as the ears of drunken sleepers
and the roses curved inward.
Nothing was black or broken
and not a leaf fell
and the sun blared endless commercials
for summer holidays.

I sat on a gray stone bench
ringed with the ingenue faces
of pink and white impatiens
and placed my grief
in the mouth of language,
the only thing that would grieve with me.

august 11/RUN

1.3 miles
longfellow neighborhood

Still keeping my filling all 3 rings streak going. Now at 76 (or is it 77?) days. Went out for a quick run with Scott to earn the last 11 exercise minutes. I rarely ever run this late in the day (6:30 pm). It’s later in the summer so the light isn’t lingering as long in the evening. Soft, beautiful.

Encountered this poem in a book about line breaks, discussing the effect of breaking the line “they taste good to her” in 3 different ways.

To a Poor Old Woman
William Carlos Williams – 1883-1963

munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand

They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her

You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand

Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her

5.45 milesfranklin loop33 degrees/feels like 26

How Wonderful BY IRVING FELDMAN

3 milestrestle turn around40 degrees

A Rhyme for Halloween BY MAURICE KILWEIN GUEVARA

30 minutesbike stand, basement

Prayer to be Still and Know Nickole Brown

bike: 17 minutesstand in basement

run: 1.2 milestreadmill in basement

bike: 16 minutesstand in basement

My Invisible Horse and the Speed of Human DecencyMatthew Olzmann

bike: 15 minutesbasement stand

run: 3 milestrestle turn around54 degreeshumidity: 85%

4.5 milesFranklin Bridge turn around45 degrees

Practice Ellen Bryant Voigt

5 milesriver road, south/falls/minnehaha creek path/longfellow gardens/falls/river road, north43 degrees

Ways Things Vanish/ TODD DILLARD

5.5 milesfranklin loop40 degrees

Daughter Jon Pineda

2.8 milestrestle turn around39 degrees

5 milesFranklin Hill turn around59 degrees

Vow/ DIANA KHOI NGUYEN

3.25 milestwo trails + extra58 degrees

Nominal/ann lauterbach

5.3 milesfranklin loop52 degrees

One Heart/yi-young lee

3 milestrestle turn around48 degrees

Spring and Fall BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

1.6 milesriver road, north/south50 degrees

Rabbits and Fire BY ALBERTO RÍOS

5 milesfranklin loop52 degrees/rain

October (excerpts) BY MAY SWENSON

3.35 milestrestle turn around + extra63 degrees

the trestle

To the Light of September/ W. S. MERWIN

1.5 milespart of 2 trails82 degrees

Nature Aria Yi Lei translated by Tracy K. Smith and Changtai Bi

5 milesfranklin hill60 degrees

A Blank White Page BY FRANCISCO X. ALARCÓN

3 milestrestle turn around72 degrees/ 85% humidity

ALMANAC/claire wahmanholm

3.1 milestwo trails + extra72 degrees

1.5 milestwo trails (almost)83 degrees

The Heat of Autumn BY JANE HIRSHFIELD

3 milestrestle turn around72 degrees/72% humidity/dew point: 65

Elegy with Apples, Pomegranates, Bees, Butterflies, Thorn Bushes, Oak, Pine, Warblers, Crows, Ants, and Worms Hayan Charara – 1971-

2.1 miles2 trails62 degrees/humidity: 94%!

Learning the Trees BY HOWARD NEMEROV

3.1 milestrestle turn around60 degrees

Doppler Effect Arthur Sze – 1950-

Doppler effect (noun):

4 milesalmost to franklin turn around59 degrees

3.2 milesford bridge and back59 degrees

Wild Geese/mary oliver

5 milesfranklin loop64 degreeslight rain

3.1 milestrestle turn around70 degreeshumidity: 84%

Sometimes/Mary Oliver (in Red Bird):

Mannequin of the Day:

1.5 milesriver road, north/south60 degrees

Sorrow Is Not My NameBY ROSS GAY

4 milesalmost to franklin bridge turn around54 degreeslight rain

Mannequin of the day:

3.1 milestrestle turn around58 degrees

Still Burning BY GERALD STERN

swim: .9 miles (1600 yards)lake nokomis

3.6 milesriver road, north/lake st bridge/marshall hill/east river road, south/lake st bridge/river road, south65 degrees

Sharon Olds, from The Gold Cell

3.5 milestwo trails +63 degrees

When We Look Up Denise Levertov – 1923-1997

2.5 milestwo trails70 degreeshumidity: 77%

AND SWEPT ALL VISIBLE SIGNS AWAY/carl phillips

3 milestrestle turn around64 degreeshumidity: 85%

from “Poplar Street“/Chen Chen

3 milestrestle turn around60 degrees

2.5 milestwo trails59 degrees

JERICHO BROWN DUPLEX (I BEGIN WITH LOVE)

3.2 milestrestle turn around65 degrees

Let’s Not Begin/Maggie Smith

3 milestwo trails

Three Songs at the End of Summer Jane Kenyon – 1947-1995

2.5 milestwo trails

5.45 miles
franklin loop
33 degrees/feels like 26

How Wonderful
BY IRVING FELDMAN

3 miles
trestle turn around
40 degrees

A Rhyme for Halloween
BY MAURICE KILWEIN GUEVARA

30 minutes
bike stand, basement

Prayer to be Still and Know
Nickole Brown

bike: 17 minutes
stand in basement

run: 1.2 miles
treadmill in basement

bike: 16 minutes
stand in basement

My Invisible Horse and the Speed of Human Decency
Matthew Olzmann

bike: 15 minutes
basement stand

run: 3 miles
trestle turn around
54 degrees
humidity: 85%

4.5 miles
Franklin Bridge turn around
45 degrees

Practice
Ellen Bryant Voigt

5 miles
river road, south/falls/minnehaha creek path/longfellow gardens/falls/river road, north
43 degrees

5.5 miles
franklin loop
40 degrees

Daughter
Jon Pineda

2.8 miles
trestle turn around
39 degrees

5 miles
Franklin Hill turn around
59 degrees

3.25 miles
two trails + extra
58 degrees

5.3 miles
franklin loop
52 degrees

3 miles
trestle turn around
48 degrees

Spring and Fall
BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

1.6 miles
river road, north/south
50 degrees

Rabbits and Fire
BY ALBERTO RÍOS

5 miles
franklin loop
52 degrees/rain

October (excerpts)
BY MAY SWENSON

3.35 miles
trestle turn around + extra
63 degrees

1.5 miles
part of 2 trails
82 degrees

Nature Aria
Yi Lei
translated by Tracy K. Smith and Changtai Bi

5 miles
franklin hill
60 degrees

A Blank White Page
BY FRANCISCO X. ALARCÓN

3 miles
trestle turn around
72 degrees/ 85% humidity

3.1 miles
two trails + extra
72 degrees

1.5 miles
two trails (almost)
83 degrees

The Heat of Autumn
BY JANE HIRSHFIELD

3 miles
trestle turn around
72 degrees/72% humidity/dew point: 65

Elegy with Apples, Pomegranates, Bees, Butterflies, Thorn Bushes, Oak, Pine, Warblers, Crows, Ants, and Worms
Hayan Charara – 1971-

2.1 miles
2 trails
62 degrees/humidity: 94%!

Learning the Trees
BY HOWARD NEMEROV

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
60 degrees

Doppler Effect
Arthur Sze – 1950-

4 miles
almost to franklin turn around
59 degrees

3.2 miles
ford bridge and back
59 degrees

5 miles
franklin loop
64 degrees
light rain

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
70 degrees
humidity: 84%

1.5 miles
river road, north/south
60 degrees

Sorrow Is Not My Name
BY ROSS GAY

4 miles
almost to franklin bridge turn around
54 degrees
light rain

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
58 degrees

Still Burning
BY GERALD STERN

swim: .9 miles (1600 yards)
lake nokomis

3.6 miles
river road, north/lake st bridge/marshall hill/east river road, south/lake st bridge/river road, south
65 degrees

3.5 miles
two trails +
63 degrees

When We Look Up
Denise Levertov – 1923-1997

2.5 miles
two trails
70 degrees
humidity: 77%

3 miles
trestle turn around
64 degrees
humidity: 85%

3 miles
trestle turn around
60 degrees

2.5 miles
two trails
59 degrees

JERICHO BROWN
DUPLEX (I BEGIN WITH LOVE)

3.2 miles
trestle turn around
65 degrees

3 miles
two trails

Three Songs at the End of Summer
Jane Kenyon – 1947-1995

2.5 miles
two trails

3 miles
trestle turn around
63 degrees

swim: 1.7 miles
cedar lake

2.2 miles
lake harriet

swim: 1.5 miles
cedar lake

3 miles
two trails

O, She Says
BY HAILEY LEITHAUSER

swim: 1.3 miles
cedar lake

3 miles
two trails +
59 degrees
humidity: 85%

From Blossoms
BY LI-YOUNG LEE

swim: 1 miles
cedar lake

2 miles
cedar lake

Water Picture
May Swenson – 1913-1989

3 miles
trestle turn around
64 degrees
humidity: 90%/dew point: 62

The Voice of God
Crystal Williams

3 miles
two trails
63 degrees

On the Dirt Path Near Folwell Avenue Haibun
Sara Puotinen