3 miles river road, south/42nd st, west/43rd ave, north/edmund, north/34th st, west 65 degrees humidity: 90%
Back in Minneapolis. Ran around the neighborhood with Scott this morning. We were gone for a few days and when we came back it was summer. Even more green. Buggy. Overgrown. Last night was quiet. Haven’t heard about any fires or explosions or mayhem. Everything looks peaceful today. Running on the river road, there was no view of the river, only green trees and haze. Surprisingly, I handled the humidity and sun better than I have in the past.
I forgot that yesterday was my 9th anniversary of running. Even if I had known, I don’t think I would have run. By the time we got home to Minneapolis, it was over 90 degrees. I’ll take today as my celebration. 3 relatively easy miles, running with Scott through a neighborhood of resilient people working to create a better city.
I haven’t been thinking about poetry for about a week now. Too overwhelmed with all that’s happened. I want to return to it now. Here’s a poem I’d like to spend some more time with. (Listen to a brief discussion about the poem + Brimhall reading it here.)
I must be the heavy globe of hydrangea, always bowing by summer’s end. Must be salt, like sadness at a burning city, an ethical disobedience. I must be a violet thorn of fire. These days I don’t taste good, but I must be singing and boneless, a lily. I must beg for it, eyes flashing silver as a fish. Must be a rosary of listening. This is how I know to love. I must hide under desks when the forecast reads: leaves red as meat, sleeping lions, chandelier of bone, moon smooth as a worry stone. I must want my life and fear the thin justice of grass. Clouds hunt, wound the rising tide. I must be paradised. On my knees again.
2.5 miles 1.5 miles loop + extra 68 degrees humidity: 45%
Last night was heartbreaking and scary. Peaceful protests, escalated by the police, turned violent. Building looted, burned. I live about a mile and a half away and could hear the sirens and smell the smoke all night. Will it happen again tonight? Such justified anger and rage over decades of racist policies and practices.
Wasn’t sure if I would run this morning but decided it might help me feel slightly less panicked and upset. Listened to my playlist and ran a few stretches much faster than usual. Running helped. Didn’t think about the poem I recently memorized–Threshold/Maggie Smith. Didn’t hear any birds or see any roller skiers. I did see the river briefly through the trees.
A few hours after I was done, sitting on the couch, almost drifting off for a nap, I thought about the lines in Smith’s poem: “Imagine yourself passing from and into. Passing through doorway after doorway after doorway.” The first few times I read these lines I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of passing through more than one doorway/threshold. But I’m warming to it. I kept thinking about the different doorways I pass through–and what I exit (from) and enter (into)–as I make my way to the river. The door to my house, the end of my block, the boulevard and parkway before the trails, the warming up of my body, the loosening of my mind. Not sure if that makes sense, but I’d like to think about it some more.
As I’m writing this, I’m also thinking about Smith’s desire not to be on both sides of the door at once, but to pass through doorway after doorway after doorway, to keep moving, which is the name of her new book.
There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted who disappeared into those shadows.
I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here, our country moving closer to its own truth and dread, its own ways of making people disappear.
I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods meeting the unmarked strip of light— ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise: I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these to have you listen at all, it’s necessary to talk about trees.
I knew I recognized this poem. I encountered it a few months ago in this poem: November 30, 2016. And I watched Adrienne Rich read it here.
2 miles 1.75 loop + extra 63 degrees humidity: 94%, dew point: 62
Established another loop for my summer loop project: 1.75 loop/ start at 36th, north on Edmund, then north on the river road at 33rd, loop around 32nd, south on edmund, then south on river road at 36th, loop around 38th, north on edmund, end at 36th. Sounds more complicated than it is. If they weren’t doing some big sewer project near the tunnel of trees which has shut down the river road for a small stretch, this loop would be north on edmund, south on the river road. Found out this morning that this project is expected to last until the fall. Bummer.
Everything was thick and green. Heavy, but also calm and slow. Wore a tank top today which helped with the heat. Heard lots of birds–some robins I think. (Later, walking with Delia the dog, I heard 2 black capped chickadees doing a call and response–except for it was more a response and call. I heard the response first. I’d like to imagine what they might be saying to each other in their reversed conversation. Anything else? No view of the river, no roller skiers, no Daily Walker. No running path, no spazzy squirrels, no woodpecker. No sun, no bugs, no shadows. Only green–green sky, green view, green air.
Thinking some more about “What Would Root” and what is and isn’t mentioned in the poem: it’s May, there’s some sun, but no wind or humidity or weather at all. No shadows. There are scolding squirrels, birds, and lizards, but no bugs–mosquitoes or gnats or moths or butterflies. No evidence of other humans. No road or path or dirt trail. There is a smell–“the air was sweet with pine and Island Mountain lilac,” taste–“I could taste the granite in the spring,” sight–“the land spread itself greenly for me,” and touch–“the rock was very hard,” but no hearing–no wind rustling through the trees, no noises from the scolding squirrels, or slurps from the red hummingbirds dipping their beaks into the little red hoods of penstemon.
Here’s another poem I found on twitter the other day involving vision. Will I have to memorize a series of poems about vision sometime this summer?
Eyesight/ A.R. Ammons
It was May before my attention came to spring and
my word I said to the southern slopes I’ve
missed it, it came and went before I got right to see:
don’t worry, said the mountain, try the later northern slopes or if
you can climb, climb into spring: but said the mountain it’s not that way with all things, some that go are gone
2.4 miles 1.5 mile loop + .75 loop + extra 62 degrees 94% humidity/ dew point: 61
Humid and thick and sticky. Hard to breathe. Yuck! I already miss the fresher, cooler air. Oh well. Decided to run a few miles this morning before the rain arrives. It’s supposed to rain here all weekend. Lots of other people–runners and walkers–had the same idea. I should start getting up much earlier, when it’s cooler and less crowded. Heard some woodpeckers and a bunch of other birds that I couldn’t readily recognize. Don’t remember much else from my run except that there were lots of puddles on the sidewalk, lots of dripping trees. At some point during the run, I got a nice little shower when the wind nudged some wet leaves and they misted me. Recited “What Would Root” a few times. When I finished my run I recited it into my phone.
What Would Root, may 23
Listening back to the recording, I’m pleased with how I remembered almost all of it and struck by how many birds I can hear in the background. As I listened to the line, “that they were a part of my body, I could not doubt; they were living and enervated and jutting out”, I thought about how I am not entirely sure what “enervated” means. Looked it up and was surprised: exhausted, fatigued, weary. I was thinking it would mean the opposite of that but as I think about the rest of the poem it makes sense. The next line is, “I sat down” and a few lines later the narrator says, “I lay down beneath my own branches.” So, does that mean rooting is akin too resting here? Stepping away from the world, “to nuzzle into the earth”? Or maybe it means being restored, revitalized–for me, that fits better with the color green. I love the world Farris creates here and I want to lay beneath my own branches and nuzzle into the earth–at least for a while, until this terrible pandemic is over and the assholes who are making it much worse are gone.
Speaking of the pandemic, we are entering a new phase. Things are opening back up and it seems like some people think this means things are getting better. Who thinks this and why? I can’t decide how much of this attitude is coming from “actual” people, and how much of it is propaganda designed to get us to risk our lives for the sake of spending money. I do not like this phase; I like it less than the last phase.
Found this poem after using the search word “green.” I want to think about it some more as it relates to my vision and how I see color and forms.
Douglas fir blurs into archetype, a black vertical with smeared green arms. The load of pinecones at the top, a brown smudge which could be anything: a wreath of moths, a rabbit strung up like a flag.
All trees are trees. Death to modifiers.
A smear of blue, a smear of gold that could be a haystack, a Cadillac, or a Medal of Honor without a neck to hang upon.
I know the dog killed something today, but it’s lost in fog. A small red splotch in a band of monochromatic green. And now, the mountain of bones is only a mountain capped in snow.
It’s a paradise of vagaries. No heartache. Just an eraser smudge, smoke-gray.
All forms, the man wrote, tend toward blur.
added 6 april 2024: Here is the source of the “All forms tend toward blur” ending:
The specific reference is on page 243 – the quotation below gives a lot more context to what Bryson is talking about with that particular phrase:
Chardin’s solution to the problem of defamiliarisation is to cultivate a studied informality of attention, which looks at nothing in particular (figs. 13 and 14). He shows no signs of wanting to tighten up the loose world of the interiors he presents. On the contrary, his own intervention is unassuming, and seems so ordinary as to relax rather than heighten attention. This is clearest in his compositional technique. Usually com- position involves a staging of the scene before the viewer, a spectacular interval or proscenium frame between the subject and the scene. The placement of the wafers in Baugin’s Dessert with Wafers, for example, is calculated with immense and evident pains. But Chardin avoids composition of this self-conscious kind. He does not want to disturb the world or to reorganise it before the subject, as though to do so would be to keep the viewer at arm’s length and to push him or her out from the scene, when what is valued is exactly the way the scene welcomes the viewer in without ceremony, to take things as he or she finds them. For the same reason his compositions tend to avoid priorities: one thing is not intrinsically more important than another; to suggest otherwise would be to upset the evenness of regard as it moves with equal interest and equal engagement across the visual field. Chardin undoes the hierarchy between zones that composition normally aims for, by giving everything the same degree of attention, or inattention; so that the details, as they emerge, are striking only because of the gentle pressures bearing down on them from the rest of the painting.
For the same reason also, all the forms tend towards blur–perhaps Chardin’s greatest formal innovation–as though he were trying to paint peripheral as well as central vision, and in this way to suggest a familiarity with the objects in the visual field on such intimate and friendly terms that nothing any more needs to be vigilantly watched. The scene contains no surprises and harbours no shocks, and vision can relax its grip. The blurring of the forms marks a kind of homecoming of the subject into the ground of being: the sign that we really are at home in this world is that we no longer have to strain our eyes.
The balance between ‘Medusal’ vision and ‘anti-Medusal’ vision is a delicate matter, and Chardin’s preference for an informal blurring of forms can be thought of as a critique of still life’s tendency to dwell for too long on the face of familiarity, and thereby to produce visual unease. But the balance can be upset by another potent force, that of display. (pp. 241-244)
Green gloom with white sky today. Please come back Sun. I like that it’s warmer outside, but I wish it wasn’t so cloudy. I want to see my shadow and the light green glow by the gorge. Decided, for the first time in a long time–a month, at least?–I ran with headphones. It helped a little to listen to AC/DC, Lizzo, Beck, Prince. For a few minutes, I felt like I was flying. Didn’t think about the poem I’m reciting this week. Did I think about anything–other than, how fast am I running, or why does this seem so hard, or I am a badass running up this hill?
Yesterday afternoon I decided to test how well I could still recite all the poems I’ve memorized. Not too bad. The hardest one was the last few lines of Lovesong for the Square Root of Negative One by Richard Siken. Maybe when I’m running loops this summer I could recite different poems on different loops? A fun challenge, maybe?
Wow, this poem! I want to spend more time with it, learning all the lines about listening. So good.
Listen to the lorikeet’s whistling song. Can you hear the call of the mynah bird? Can you hear the flamingos in the water? Can you hear your small heart next to mine and the house breathing as it holds us? Can you hear the chainsaw start, the bones of our neighbor’s eucalyptus breaking? It’s summer, high, emptied. Listen to the ground, giddy with thirst. Listen to the dog shit on the lawns, the murderous water boatmen skimming the green pond. Can you hear the roses rioting on the trellis? Can you make a noise like a cheeky monkey? There are sounds your book lacks names for. Can you hear the sleepless girls in Attercliffe? Can you hear the aspirin of the sun dissolving? Listen to the casual racists in the family pub. Listen to the house Shiraz I drink as if it’s something’s blood. Listen to my fear, blooming in the vase of my chest, and listen to how I water it. Can you hear your grandfather’s lost childhood? Can you hear the suburban library shutting? The door closing? The books still breathing? O can you hear the budget tightening? It’s almost dark. Listen to the noisy penguins on the ice. Listen to my late-night online purchases. Orange lipstick. High-waisted bikini briefs. Types of plant that will never die. Listen to your half-sister hissing to her friends at 2 a.m. You hang up. No, you hang up. Listen to the panic in their emojis. Can you hear your father lighting his first cigarette? Can you hear the foxes mating all the way to oblivion? Their sounds are inhuman, too human, scaling the high fences, pressing our windowpanes. Listen to the utter indifference of the stars. The night is full of holes and we grate our bodies against them. Can you hear that, Alfie? Can you hear me holding you, closer than my life? Listen to “The Trout” by Schubert. Listen to the blackbird’s chirpy song. Listen to this waltz by Paganini. Listen to the stage as we walk clean off the front of it, into the audience, the pit, the silent orchestra.
I love how she trades off between lines with the question, Can you hear, and the command, Listen. I love the line, “there are sounds your book lacks names for” and roses rioting and indifferent stars, the thirsty ground, the panic in their emojis.
4.3 miles Edmund, north/river road, north/seabury, south/river road, south/edmund, south 57 degrees
What a wonderful morning run! The overcast sky made the green glow even more. Even as there were people out on the trails, there were stretches of solitude. Often, the closed road was empty. I was able to run right above the river a few times. Why can’t I remember what the river looked like? Encountered a large group of bikers–over 10, maybe 15 or 20?–by the railroad trestle, getting ready to head out somewhere. Glad I didn’t see them again. Heard some voices way below me, peered down the old wooden steps just north of the trestle to the Winchell Trail–so green and mysterious and buggy, I bet. Heard a murder of crows, then looked up and watched them circling in the sky. Also heard some Northern Cardinals and the strident, irritating call of a few bluejays (I think?).
Recited my poem a few times more. The line about the baubles and trinkets seems to have a bit more movement. Recited it into my phone right after I finished walking, when my heart rate was still high and my breathing heavy, but got distracted by some approaching walkers and momentarily forgot a line. Still made it through the whole poem.
Instructions on Not Giving Up, may 16
open swim
Last night I found out that they are not cancelling open swim. This confuses me. How can it be safe enough to gather and swim? And it saddens me. As much as I love my fellow swimmers when we are all in the lake, I am not confident we can social distance in the water. How can I? With my bad vision–barely able to see buoys or bobbing caps–I might run into someone else. It was difficult to miss out on swimming when I thought it was cancelled. It is even harder to have to make the choice not to do it when it’s still happening.
Thought I’d end with another rumination on green. This time, green grass and one of my favorite parts of Song of Myself.
Song of Myself, 6 [A child said, What is the grass?]/ Walt Whitman
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, Growing among black folks as among white, Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass, It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken, It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, soon out of their mothers’ laps, And here you are the mothers’ laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers, Darker than the colorless beards of old men, Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues, And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps. What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
Favorite line for a long time: “the beautiful uncut hair of graves”
Decided to run the whole loop, from 32nd to 42nd to 32nd again to see how long it is: 3.2 miles. Added on some extra in the neighborhood to make it to 4 miles. Not too bad. I wonder how many loops I could do? Should that be a goal this summer? Maybe. I suppose if I can’t loop in the lake, I’ll have to do it on land.
Another beautiful spring morning. Not too windy or crowded. I think I remember hearing a black capped chickadee (and I can hear them outside of my window as I type this). Not sure about any other birds–I bet they were chattering but I tuned them out. Noticed the soft green glow of the leaves over the gorge offering less of a view and more of a mood or a feeling. Was almost able to get a glimpse of the river but the rim of the bluff was too far away and it was too green. I didn’t run on the trail at all today, just the road.
reciting while running
Recited “Instructions on Not Giving Up” over and over again. A few times I even whispered it out loud. Didn’t really stumble over any words, except for maybe, “the world’s baubles and trinkets,” because it seems to stop the flow of the sentences. Does it or is it that I haven’t fully memorized the poem yet? My favorite line today: “more than the neighbor’s/ almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving/ their cotton-candy color blossoms to the slate/ sky of spring rains.” I remember now how I stumbled over “cotton candy color blossoms” a few times–I’d think candy cotton or cotton-candy colored instead. Why does she use color and not colored? Or, why do I assume it should be colored–because of phrases like “rose colored glasses”?
update, may 21: Looking over this poem again, I noticed that it DOES say “cotton-candy colored.” Why did I see it as cotton-candy color before? Must be my very bad vision.
Right after I finished running, I pulled out my phone and recorded myself reciting the poem. I almost got it all right, except: 1. I said through instead of out of the crabapple tree, 2. their green skin instead of the green skin, and 3. continuously living instead of continuous living.
Instructions on Not Giving Up, may 15
Found this poem the other day and bookmarked it. I love poems that give advice in unconventional ways.
Hunt only at night. Fly erratically. Defy even your own expectations. Feed on beetles, moths, and mosquitoes, whatever is small and annoying. Cultivate the myths about you until every predator fears your legend. When hunting, be guided by a language only you can hear. The same is true when courting the one you love. Clean fangs and fur nightly. Crawl or climb to confuse the observant. Retreat to a cave no one believes in. Let the day and the world pass while you sleep, and sleep upside down, ready to wake and fall into flight.
A few favorite lines: “Defy even your own expectations”, “Feed on…whatever is small and annoying”, and “Retreat to a cave no one believes in.”
Tried a variation on the loop I did yesterday by making it a little longer. My loop yesterday from home to 36th to 42nd to 36th again was about 1.8 miles; the loop today from home to 32nd to 42nd to 34th was about 3 miles. Next time, I should try continuing on until 32nd and see how long a complete loop is. It’s fun to figure out different routes. I’m thinking this might be the summer of loops.
It’s overcast this morning. Rain coming soon. Everything was green and quiet and expectant. Up on edmund early in the run, I saw a roller skier down below. A few minutes later, I passed them on the hill. Can’t remember if I heard them clickity-clacking. Saw a few other runners, walkers, and bikers. Not too crowded except for the spot on the road right before the tunnel of trees. Trucks were blocking half the road, working on high speed internet lines. Couldn’t see the river because I was too far away from the bluff. At some point, when I was closest to the bluff, I heard some rustling in the bushes just beyond the trail. What was down there? A squirrel? A bird? A coyote?
bird sounds
Didn’t hear any black-capped chickadees this morning but as I was nearing 42nd, I hear a few other birds that sounded like laser beams or guns from 70s science-fiction movies. Pew pew pew. Looked it up and I’m pretty sure it was a few northern cardinals. As I was turning onto Edmund, I thought about how much more I’m paying attention to bird sounds this year and how my language/description is getting more specific. In the past, when I talked about birds, I might describe them as singing or chirping or trilling but I wasn’t really thinking about the specific sounds they were making. I was using those verbs generically. I should start making a big list of words for bird sounds that I find.
reciting while running
Recited The Trees again this morning. Over and over. Thought about the meter and how it was easy to lock into a cadence that sounded too rhythmic until I got to the line, “Yet still the unresting castles thresh.” Can’t remember that much else about the poem while I was running but later, while walking Delia the dog, I thought about the first line and the unique, musical and literal way he describes the leaves returning to the trees–“The trees are coming into leaf.” Then I thought about the second line–“Almost like something being said.” Later in the poem, Larkin tells us what they seem to say: “Last year is dead” and “Begin afresh afresh afresh” I wonder, what else might the leaves be saying? What do I hear them saying?
sidewalk poetry
Yesterday, during our evening walk, Scott and I noticed some writing on the sidewalk. If I had stopped and spent a few minutes staring at it, I could have read it, even with my bad vision. Luckily I didn’t have to; Scott could read it instantly. A haiku by the famous Japanese poet Issa about a snail climbing Mt. Fuji slowly. I am familiar with Issa but haven’t really studied them–I’ve read up a little more on one of the other notable Japanese poets, Basho. Very cool. I love how literary my neighborhood is–we live in the Cooper (as in James Fenimore Cooper) part of Longfellow (as in Henry Longfellow) neighborhood. Within a few blocks of me are 2 different poetrees (trees with poem prompts affixed to them). I’d like to chalk some Emily Dickinson on our sidewalk–maybe “In the name of the Bees—And the Butterflies—And the Breeze—Amen!”
Speaking of Issa, when I looked him up on the poetry foundation site, I found this delightful poem:
4 miles river road, south/42nd street, west/edmund, north x 2 + extra on edmund at end 42 degrees
Decided to try looping today. Starting at the end of my block, turning right at the river, looping back on edmund twice = 3.44 miles. Stayed on edmund after the second loop past 36th and kept running until 34th. Not too bad. Maybe next time I loop, I’ll try turning left on edmund, running north until 33rd, running south on the river road until 42nd. How much more distance will that add?
Wore a new pair of running shoes today: some Saucony grid cohesions that I bought 6 months ago. Slate gray with mint green accents. I had thought, when I ordered them online, that they were black (because the description said they were black) but gray will do. The favorite color I’ve had so far? Electric blue. I wish I could still get those.
A good run. Still cold outside but not for long. Maybe the 80s next week. I wore my winter vest + long sleeve green shirt + winter tights. I’m ready to put away all these layers!
Sounds
a black-capped chickadee singing the “feebee” song
a woodpecker drumming on a tree
a few crows
the clickity-clack of a roller skier
some part of my vest banging against my shoulder, sounding like another runner approaching from behind
a tin whistle chirp from some bird I couldn’t identify (I think it’s a Robin)
car wheels slowly approaching from behind
a group of three walkers talking
Made sure to look down at the river for the short time that I was able to run right above the gorge. Blue framed in green. Don’t remember noticing it sparkling or shimmering or undulating or doing anything but being below me. After I crossed over to the road, I noticed the soft green glow of the new leaves lining the bluff. I think this spring and summer are going to much more about green than blue.
reciting while running
On my second day of reciting The Trees by Phillip Larkin, I did a much better job of remembering all the lines. I don’t think I stumbled over any this time. Thought a lot about the line, “Last year is dead, they seem to say/Begin afresh, afresh, afresh” For me, when does a new year begin–the fall or the spring? And where does winter fit into all of it? Also thought about the line “Their greenness is a kind of grief” and the contrast between Larkin’s grief as the greening of the trees and Gerard Manley Hopkins’s golden unleaving grief. How do these griefs differ for me? Which one is more difficult? At the end of my run, I recorded myself reciting the poem. Not perfect, but okay. The only glaring mistake is the last line. Instead of saying “Begin afresh” I say “Be afresh.” Begin sounds so much better, makes much more sense, than be.
The Trees, may 12
Since I mentioned Hopkins, I thought I’d put in Spring and Fall again (which is one of the first poems I remember memorizing and loving back in high school):
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.
Even as I often think about how white running is, and how white and privileged the spaces I run in are, I rarely (if ever?) post about it on this blog. Why not–maybe something to interrogate further? But when I saw this thread about the recent murder of Ahmaud Arbery while he was running through his neighborhood, I knew I needed to post it here. This thread offers a brief history of the whiteness of running and the dangers of running while black and links to several useful articles, including:
3 miles river road, south/edmund, north/33rd street, west/44th ave, south 45 degrees
Overcast this morning but not too cold or too windy. The river road is completely closed to cars now. Much quieter and calmer. Not crowded–except for all the green on the edge of the bluff blocking the view. Didn’t see the river even once. Barely glimpsed the oak savanna by the ancient boulder that looks like an armchair. Don’t remember hearing many birds. No clickity-clacks from a roller skier. Did hear a small group of bikers talking as they approached from the north. I can’t remember what I thought about–maybe that’s partly because I’m writing this hours after my run. Recited “Ode to My Right Knee” a few more times. A good, uneventful run.
After looking way too long for a poem I might post, I found this beautiful one by Linda Paston. I first encountered her through her poem Vertical (which I experimented with on this blog a few years ago).
I am learning to abandon the world before it can abandon me. Already I have given up the moon and snow, closing my shades against the claims of white. And the world has taken my father, my friends. I have given up melodic lines of hills, moving to a flat, tuneless landscape. And every night I give my body up limb by limb, working upwards across bone, towards the heart. But morning comes with small reprieves of coffee and birdsong. A tree outside the window which was simply shadow moments ago takes back its branches twig by leafy twig. And as I take my body back the sun lays its warm muzzle on my lap as if to make amends.
The site I originally found this poem on is fascinating: Read a Little Poetry. I’ve been returning it to every so often–anonymous, combining fragments from their life with poems.