Ran the short loop with Scott this morning. We talked about the fall, whether or not schools would open, how complicated and messy and difficult it is, and how much the federal government has failed us. It’s warmer today and we could feel it, especially in the shade-less stretches. Still nice to be outside and start the morning running near the river.
After the run, walking through the neighborhood with Delia the dog, I recited the poem I memorized yesterday to Scott: Praying/ Mary Oliver. Another door poem.
Praying/ Mary Oliver
It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.
I love this idea of a doorway into thanks and how paying attention to the world can lead us through it. Also like the idea of silence and other voices speaking and how paying attention can help us to listen.
Another windy day. Not too warm, some sun, some clouds. Was able to briefly glimpse the river through the trees. It was glowing white. Heard many cardinals. Lately–or has it been happening for a long time?–I’m having more trouble seeing people approaching me. Today, I ran up on the grass, planning to head down a hill to where the river road opens up again, and suddenly I noticed a runner there. They weren’t too close and I was able to move far out of the way when I finally saw them. Still, I had looked and should have been able to notice them. I wonder how bad my vision is these days? It’s easier not to notice because I am not driving or going into strange buildings with signs I can’t immediately read or trying to recognize people or make eye contact with them. Some morning, when it’s not too crowded, I should try biking somewhere, just to see if it’s possible. That would be a good test of my vision.
Memorized Carl Sandburg’s doors yesterday. Recited it a few times in my head as I ran. Didn’t really think about the rhythm as I ran. Is that because summer runs are always more difficult for me and I can’t think about anything else but how I’m hot or tired? Right before leaving for my run I read someone’s brief analysis of the poem; they believed Sandburg’s doors symbolize opportunity–opportunities taken or squandered. In my own thinking about doors, I’ve imagined them as symbols of possibility and freedom, but never opportunity. Opportunity seems like a business/career/success/progress symbol which narrows its scope too much for me.
Doors/ Carl Sandburg
An open door says, “Come in.” A shut door says, “Who are you?” Shadows and ghosts go through shut doors. If a door is shut and you want it shut, why open it? If a door is open and you want it open, why shut it? Doors forget but only doors know what it is doors forget.
I like the line about shadows and ghosts going through shut doors. Speaking of shadows and ghosts, I saw my shadow today but in the cloud-covered light it was so faint it almost looked like a ghost of a shadow, or a trace of where a shadow had once been. Very cool effect. At first, I thought I saw it there, but when I paid closer attention it was gone. Then, in the next minute, it was back–a vague outline of me.
Right after finishing my run, I recorded myself reciting the poem. Just a few errors.
Cool and sunny and wonderful. Repeated my run from yesterday. Encountered a few roller skiers near the trestle. Was passed by a mini peloton. Noticed some dogs with their owners. Heard some guy walking and talking very loudly into his cellphone. Also heard lots of noise coming from the gorge or the tunnel of trees trail. Could it have been some rowers–or people watching the rowers? Didn’t see the Daily Walker or hear any music. Did hear a woodpecker and the crunch of feet striking some piled up sand near lake street.
Recited the new poem I memorized yesterday, Anne Sexton’s “I Remember.”
I Remember/ Anne Sexton
By the first of August the invisible beetles began to snore and the grass was as tough as hemp and was no color — no more than the sand was a color and we had worn our bare feet bare since the twentieth of june and there were times we forgot to wind up your alarm clock and some nights we took our gin warm and neat from old jelly glasses while the sun blew out of sight like a red picture hat and one day I tied my hair back with a ribbon and you said that I looked almost like a puritan lady and what I remember best is that the door to your room was the door to mine.
Became easily distracted with my running or the road or avoiding people on the road, so I couldn’t recite it straight through in my head without stopping. Still managed to think about and enjoy many of the lines in the poem–the invisible beetles snoring, wearing bare feet bare, taking gin warm and neat from old jelly glasses, the sun blowing out of sight. Thought about how much I liked her choices of “taking gin” and “from old jelly glasses” instead of drinking gin out of jelly glasses, although I would have liked “old jelly jars” instead of jelly glasses.
Perhaps the line that stumped me the most was “like a red picture hat.” Googled “what is a picture hat?” (tried red picture hat first but that search returned a lot of pointless pinterest posts) and found this useful post on a site called the Dreamstress: “Terminology: What is a picture hat?” I’m very glad I looked this up. Fun and fascinating. Here’s the Dreamstress’s basic definition: “A picture hat is a large, broad-brimmed hat, usually rather elaborately trimmed.” They were popular from the 1890s until the 1910s and were extreme and ostentatious and very irritating to theater goers sitting behind the hat wearer. I have often thought it would be fun to wear a big hat like this; it would probably help with my vision too, blocking out extra visual noise.
Now I’m thinking about Sexton’s referencing a vintage, out-of-fashion hat and her mention of winding up (as opposed to setting) an alarm clock and tying her hair back, looking almost like a Puritan lady. All of this makes her memories seem old, out of reach, way in the past.
After I finished my run, walking back home, I recorded myself reciting the poem. A few mistakes, some extra words:
What a beautiful morning! Sunny, not too warm, not too windy. Managed to run mostly in the shade. Thought about running through the welcoming oaks on the trails but decided it might be too crowded. Greeted them silently from afar. Didn’t see my shadow or the river. Didn’t hear any rowers or roller skiers. No birds circling the sky. No cottonwood sticking to the sweat on my face. No annoying gnats or squirrels. Don’t remember thinking about anything. Ran near a sprinkler–the one that has been watering the grass, the sidewalk, the street, every morning this week. On Wednesday I was able to get a quick shower on my shins from the sprinkler. Not today.
Decided to stop at the bottom of edmund to recite the Emily Dickinson poem before running up the hill. I talked with more confidence into the phone, not carrying if any of the runners or walkers nearby heard me. I’m getting better.
I dwell, june 12
And here’s another alphabet poem. I love playing around with the alphabet!
Once there was an opening, an operation: out of which oared the ocean, then oyster and oystercatcher, opal and opal-crowned tanager. From ornateness came the ornate flycatcher and ornate fruit dove. From oil, the oilbird. O is for opus, the Orphean warbler’s octaves, the oratorio of orioles. O for the osprey’s ostentation, the owl and its collection of ossicles. In October’s ochre, the orchard is overgrown with orange and olive, oleander and oxlip. Ovals of dew on the oatgrass. O for obsidian, onyx, ore, for boreholes like inverted obelisks. O for the onion’s concentric O’s, observable only when cut, for the opium oozing from the poppy’s globe only when scored. O for our organs, for the os of the cervix, the double O’s of the ovaries plotted on the body’s plane to mark the origin. O is the orbit that cradles the eye. The oculus opens an O to the sky, where the starry outlines of men float like air bubbles between us and oblivion. Once there were oarfish, opaleyes, olive flounders. Once the oxbows were not overrun with nitrogen. O for the mussels opening in the ocean’s oven. O for the rising ozone, the dropping oxygen, for algae overblooming like an omen or an oracle. O Earth, out-gunned and out-manned. O who holds the void inside itself. O who has made orphans of our hands.
My love of alphabets reminds me of the collection of kids ABC books I inherited from my mom when she died. I should look at them, be inspired by them. Should I do an ABC book about the gorge (or the gorge in a pandemic, or running by the gorge, or running by the gorge in a pandemic?).
4.1 miles minnehaha falls and back 60 degrees humidity: 77%/ dew point: 52
Felt much cooler today. Windy. Overcast. Ran all the way to the falls for the first time in several months. Managed to see the river. Noticed how one of my favorite views during the winter–the spot just past the oak savanna, where the mesa dips down to meet the river–was completely hidden behind a wall of green. The falls were gushing. Someone was setting up the bike surreys as I reached it. Minnehaha creek was rushing. Heard at least one woodpecker; don’t remember any other birds. Encountered some bikes, walkers, runners. Heard but didn’t see the clickity-clack of at least one roller skier. Anything else? Happily ran over some grit and listened to it crunch. Almost tripped on a pothole on the other side of turkey hollow.
While I ran, I recited “I dwell in Possibility” several times. Thought about pulling out my phone and reciting it as I ran but didn’t. One day, I’ll finally do it. Love the rhythm of: “And for an everlasting Roof/The Gambrels of the Sky–” About a minute after I finished running, I recorded myself reciting it into my phone. How could I mess up the last line?
What is possible is, again by definition, more vast and varied than the Prose world of observation and logic. It is the world of imagination and of poetry. Little wonder Dickinson finds her imaginative world – her true dwelling – “fairer” than the cramped quarters of the prosaic, that is to say, her actual, physical house and home. Possibility has more doors and windows – the better to let in light and to look out of!
Yet there is a wonderful privacy, too. Those “superior” doors have a dual purpose. And despite the numerous windows, there are private “Chambers” as “Impregnable” to the eye as a cedar tree. The poet can be as reclusive as she wishes in this marvelous house.
I love the idea of the freedom the doors and windows bring and the privacy they allow. They’re both an entry into a bigger, fairer world and an escape/protection from an restrictive, oppressive one.
Found a poem on twitter this morning from Donika Kelly who wrote Bestiary–which I just checked out of the library and that has a poem about a door. Here’s the one I found and the door one:
All the birds die of blunt force trauma— of barn of wire of YIELD or SLOW CHILDREN AT PLAY. You are a sign are a plank are a raft are a felled oak. You are a handle are a turn are a bit of brass lovingly polished. What birds what bugs what soft hand come knocking. What echo what empty what room in need of a picture a mirror a bit of paint on the wall. There is a hooked rug There is a hand hard as you are hard pounding the door. There is the doormat owl eye patched by a boot by a body with a tree for a hand. What roosts what burrows what scrambles at the pound. There is a you on the other side, cold and white as the room, in need of a window or an eye. There is your hand on the door which is now the door pretending to be a thing that opens.
Wow! I’m looking forward to reading Bestiary today. What a wonderful poet!
3.1 miles trestle turn around 72 degrees humidity: 56%/ dew point: 59
Warm, but low humidity. Sunny, green, calm, relaxed. Encountered many bikers and walkers but was able to keep a good distance from all of them. Couldn’t get close enough to the river to see it but did hear the coxswain calmly directing the rowers, her voice amplified by a bullhorn. I wish I could have seen the rowers and the sparkling water. How many rowers were in the shell? Can you properly social distance in those things?
note: was planning to write about how sad it is that open swim is starting today and I won’t be doing it and how frustrated and confused I am by how so many other people seem to think we don’t need to social distance or be careful anymore, but I decided to leave it out. Still, I wanted to make note of it and how it casts a shadow over this time and my log entry today.
Didn’t recite “voiceover” as I ran today…it’s probably time to move onto another poem. Because of the heat and humidity and how difficult that makes it to think about anything but how hot and humid it is, I’m wondering if I should adjust my poem list and memorize some that are short and rhythmic. Yes. I think I’ll memorize some more Emily Dickinson. When I didn’t feel motivated to recite “voiceover” today, I recited “It’s all I have to bring today” instead. I love Emily Dickinson. And I love this poem about possibility, especially after reading the prowling Bee’s analysis!
I dwell in Possibility – A fairer House than Prose – More numerous of Windows – Superior – for Doors –
Of Chambers as the Cedars – Impregnable of eye – And for an everlasting Roof The Gambrels of the Sky –
Of Visitors – the fairest – For Occupation – This – The spreading wide my narrow Hands To gather Paradise –
This poem fits with my theme of inner and outer–it, along with Smith’s “Threshold” and Dove’s “Voiceover” feature doors.
Smith: “passing through doorway after doorway after doorway” and “but any open space may be a threshold, an arch, of entering and leaving.” Dove: “We walk back and forth without a twitch…with only the occasional stubbed toe…The keyhole sees nothing”
Door as a way in, way out, to pass through, to close, to open, to protect, to retreat, to keep private, a barrier, a limit.
2 miles 36th st to 32nd st to 38th st to 36th st 75 degrees humidity: 76%/ dew point: 67!
It’s going to be a hot one today. 96? 97? Already now, before 9, it’s over 80 degrees. Decided to do a short run this morning before I have to retreat to the air conditioning this afternoon. Not too bad, considering the dew point is 67. That’s way up there on the misery index. Heard lots of birds, a sprinkler, some bike wheels. No geese or Daily Walkers or roller skiers or music or chainsaws cutting down trees. No sirens or rushing car wheels. No rowers on the river or voices rising up from the gorge. Lately I’ve been noticing cotton from the cottonwood trees flying around. Is the floodplain forest white with it yet? Will I be able to get down there to see?
At the end of my run, about 2 minutes after I stopped, I recorded myself reciting “Voiceover.” Thought about the title and how voiceover can refer to the voice of an unseen narrator speaking and the voice of a visible character expressing unspoken thoughts. So it can be a voice outside oneself narrating the scene, or a voice inside oneself revealing inner thoughts.
note from 15 December 2020: Currently I’m reviewing these entries for my end of the year post and reviewing Voiceover to remember it. I’m struck by how my description of voiceover fits with Rita Dove’s lines: “You can be inside a house and still feel/ the rooms you’re not in … but you can’t hold onto the sensation/ of being both inside the walls/ and outside looking at them/ at the same time.”
voiceover/rita dove (june 8)
Feeling frustration over how everything is opening back up–even the beaches at the lake–and disappointment that so many people seem to have given up on trying to be prevent the spread of COVID-19. I’m seeing too many pictures of people getting together without social distancing. I don’t understand. Maybe most people are being careful and I’m only seeing/hearing about the ones who aren’t? Whatever the case, I’m not letting up on keeping my distance from people.
Minneapolis City Council voted to dismantle the Minneapolis Police yesterday (with a veto-proof 9 votes)! Very exciting. Here’s a few things I read/watched that are related to what’s happening:
It’s not just that police are ineffective: in many communities, they’re actively harmful. The history of policing is a history of violence against the marginalized– American police departments were originally created to dominate and criminalize communities of color and poor white workers, a job they continue doing to this day. The list has grown even longer: LGBTQ folks, disabled people, activists– so many of us are attacked by cops on a daily basis.
And it’s bigger than just police brutality; it’s about how the prison industrial complex, the drug war, immigration law, and the web of policy, law, and culture that forms our criminal justice system has destroyed millions of lives, and torn apart families. Cops don’t prevent crime; they cause it, through the ongoing, violent disruption of our communities.
It’s also worth noting that most social service agencies and organizations that could serve as alternatives to the police are underfunded, scrambling for grant money to stay alive while being forced to interact with officers who often make their jobs even harder. In 2016, the Minneapolis Police Department received $165 million in city funding alone. Imagine what that kind of money could do to keep our communities safe if it was reinvested.
Daniel Bergin, documentary filmmaker for Twin Cities PBS: This paradox goes to the very founding of the state: the colonization and the displacement of Dakota and Ojibwe, which is its own complex and deep and insidious story. But in terms of the African-American experience, even after the territorial period, there was this tension around abolitionist culture from the New Englanders who had largely made up Minneapolis at the time, and the businessmen who were seated in St. Paul.
3.75 miles river road, north/river road, south 65 degrees humidity: 72%
Started the run by myself but at the halfway point I encountered Scott and decided to run with him the rest of the way. Sunny. Windy, feeling warmer than 65. Remember hearing at least one woodpecker, a lone goose up high honking, “wait for me!” or “where is everybody?” Caught a quick glance of the river before having to move to the road to avoid an approaching walker. Forgot to look at the trestle–no trains above. More than once I thought the fast, whirring wheels of a bike were an approaching car.
reciting while running
Before meeting up with Scott, I recited Rita Dove’s poem a few times. Almost memorized it enough to dig into the meaning of the words. Today I liked the line “If you think about it,/everything’s inside something else;/everything’s an envelope/inside a package/in a case—/and pain knows its way into every crevice.” Need to think some more about what that means. Also liked, “There are spaces for living/and spaces for forgetting.”
A few minutes after returning home, recited the poem into my phone. I need to work on the line about standing outside of your skin–I said body.
voiceover/rita dove (june 7)
A few hours later, sitting in red lounge chair in the shade of the crabapple tree, I thought some more about Dove’s poem and the lines about everything being inside something else. Wrote in my plague notebook #3: There is no ultimate outside of everything. No pure objectivity, free of pain or perspective. No access to the Big, complete picture.
3.5 miles 47th st loop, short 67 degrees clouds: cumulus (I think?)
What a beautiful morning for a run! Some sun, some clouds. Coolish air, a breeze. Soft, calm green everywhere. Lots of birds. Not too many runners or bikers. After the frightening, end-of-the-world feelings last week, it’s nice to have a few relaxed, almost normal moments. Ran down past turkey hollow but forgot to look for any turkeys. Didn’t get close enough to the river to see whether it was blue or gray or silver or brown. On the stretch somewhere between 38th and 42nd, heard a dog’s chain clanging below on the Winchell trail. I’ve heard a chain clanging like this on all 3 of my most recent runs–is it at the same spot? is it the same dog? am I just imagining it?
reciting while running
Last week, I memorized Maggie Smith’s “Threshold.” This week I discovered Rita Dove’s “Voiceover” and decided I should postpone memorizing water poems and do a series on inside and outside and traveling in-between them with “Voiceover” as the second poem. So far, I’ve memorized the first half. I recited it in my head a few times as I ran. It’s harder to hang onto the words and think about them during my run as it gets warmer and more humid outside. Haven’t noticed the rhythm in the poem yet. Here are some things I’m noting about the poem today:
vast is a great word
love the image of smoke coming off the ice on a thawing lake
like this idea of being inside a house and still feeling the rooms you’re not in and how feeling them is not the same as observing/seeing them–I want to think more about the limits of vision (as opposed to other senses) in enabling us to be both inside and outside at once
I’ve never heard the phrase, “popping a beer.” I get what it means–popping the tab of a beer can–but I’ve never heard it used this way
the keyhole sees nothing + stubbing your toe as you move back and forth–a connection to Smith’s threshold!
About 30 minutes after I returned from my run, I recorded the first part of the poem into my phone. I mostly have it memorized, with a few mistakes. I can’t believe I forgot the second sentence, “try it.”
Voiceover/rita dove, pt 1 (june 6)
abolishing the police
It is a unsettling, sad, exciting, and hopeful time in Minneapolis (and around the country) as people who have never–or maybe just barely–questioned the validity of the current police state are thinking deeply about what it might mean to get rid of the police and reimagine how communities/cities might look out for/care and keep each other safe. Intellectuals and activists have been doing this thinking, theorizing, planning work for decades, so there are tons of resources, like this reading list: Reading Towards Abolition: A Reading List on Policing, Rebellion, and the Criminalization of Blackness
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.