Tag: running rhythms

oct 7/RUN

3 miles
trestle turn around
51 degrees

Fall, finally! Wore my bright orange sweatshirt and black shorts with gray compression socks. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker. Hi Dave! It’s a beautiful morning! Not too long after that I spotted an albino squirrel by the edge of the bluff. I didn’t stop, but I slowed down and took an extra glance to check that I was seeing what I thought I was. I think so, but how would I know? I saw some rowers emerging from the hill that leads down to the rowing club, but didn’t hear any of them on the river. Since I went north, I didn’t hear any kids on a school playground. Noticed lots of trash bags beside the already full trash cans. Marathon clean-up or a clearing out of camps in the gorge? Also noticed some flowers at the trestle in a makeshift vase — an open cylinder where a railing used to be attached. Orange cones were still next to the crack, warning runners and walkers — stay away. The crack looks like it hasn’t gotten any bigger or longer.

In mile 2, I started chanting a part of my poem, You Are Here: Tunnel of Trees:

Oh, where is the sky?
And where is the ground?
Neither can be seen.

Moving feet strike
only air,
and eyes see
only green.

To fly, to float,
to pass through with ease.

held up
by openness,
not hemmed in
by trees.

The last lines didn’t quite work with my movement, so I changed them slightly:

held Up by
the openness,
not hemmed In
by the trees.

Then I began repeating certain verses instead of reciting them straight through. To float, to fly/to pass through with ease//to float, to fly/to pass through with ease//to float, to fly/to pass through with ease and Held up by/the openness/not hemmed in/by the trees//Held up by/the openness/not hemmed in/by the trees.

I noticed a difference in how it felt as I switched up the lines. To float, to fly had a lot more open space around it. This is how my foot strikes matched up with the words: (x = foot strike without word)

To float x
To fly x
To pass through with ease

The silent extra beat created space and felt slower, maybe a little more labored? In contrast, the last verse was faster and easier for me to sync up my feet with lungs and brain and heart and the gorge.

Held up by
the openness
Not hemmed in
by the trees

No silent foot strikes, just one word per strike.

This experiment was fun and made the run easier, and, as a bonus, it helped me with my poem!

Air

I am little late with picking a theme for this month. I’ve been too haunted by my Girl Ghost Gorge project. Editing and adding new poems every day. Finally, a week in, it has come to me: AIR. Air is the section I am working on right now. It’s the third (love those 3s!) element of the collection: rock, river, Air.

Air as: air quality, good air, bad air, lungs, breathing, syncing up lungs with my feet and the feet and the lungs of others (human and non-human), open space, Nothingness/void, emptiness, a clear view, secrets revealed, thresholds, late October to mid-November before the snow flies, when the veil lifts or thins, boulevards and parkways, ventilation and purification, things not seen but sensed, a stillness within the flux of happenings, fleeting/ephemeral/weightless, smells, plagues, rust, erosion, fire, uncluttered and calm

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.

log entry 7 oct 2019

flame and rust, flame and rust — another October poem (along with Louise Glück’s and May Swenson’s Octobers): Leaves

Today, while I ran, I thought about how chanting in the lines, held up by/the openness/not hemmed in/by the trees, made me feel how I was floating through the air. I noticed the space between foot strikes, that small instant when both of my feet are off of the ground, instead of when they’re striking it. My Apple watch measures my ground contact time while running, the time each foot is on the ground per stride (in ms), but it doesn’t measure the time you’re not on the ground. I guess I could figure it out, but couldn’t the watch do it for me? What percentage of my running is in the air versus touching ground?

With some help from Scott and AI, I determined that my stride time (60/170 — cadence) is 353 ms. Then subtracting my ground contact time from my stride time: 353 – 230 = 123 ms. To find the percentage, it’s ground contact time / total time. For me, I’m on the ground roughly 65% of the stride, and in the air 35% of the stride. It might be fun to work on increasing my cadence (time for the metronome!) and see if that makes any difference in my floating/flying time. Sounds fun!

sept 24/RUN

2.5 miles
2 trails
70 degrees
humidity: 67%

Tried an experiment today. Instead of running early when it was much cooler, but very high humidity (97%), I waited and ran when it was much warmer, but with lower humidity. The hypothesis: the humidity is more of a problem than the temperature. Observations: fatigue, abundant sweat, slow legs, needing to walk sooner and for longer, not much fun. Tentative conclusion: heat affects me more than humidity. Of course, other factors to consider include: a different time of day, direct sun. My scientific method here might be half-baked, but I’m accepting the conclusion. No waiting until later to run! When in doubt, go earlier.

As (almost) always, I’m glad I went for a run by the gorge. A beautiful fall afternoon! A bright blue sky, rusting leaves, clear paths.

At the beginning of my run, I chanted the opening section of my Running Chant: River — flow flow flow / slow slow slow / flow flow flow / slow slow slow. The goal was to quiet my mind and fall into the rhythm of my feet. An idea: why not have a page filled with these opening words as part of my Girl Ghost Gorge collection?

3 visual options:

  1. a page with a line of flow then a line of the word slow
  2. 2 or 4 columns, one with flow, one with slow — you can read it vertically, down the lines, or horizontally, across the columns
  3. a page of flow flow flow / slow slow slow in very faint print, with only a few of the words in regular (or bold?) print

10 Things

  1. empty bench at the Horace Cleveland Overlook
  2. trickling water at the 44th street ravine
  3. the steady falling of water at the 42nd street ravine
  4. a friendly biker on the walking path below — hello! / hello
  5. 2 people at the folwell bench, one of them leaning over looking at their lap — were they holding a phone?
  6. graffiti — can’t remember color or what it said — on the limestone retaining wall
  7. a squeaking sound from across the river — a bike?
  8. someone squatting at the edge of the 38th street steps, talking on the phone
  9. a trace of color — yellow, pink — on the 38th street steps
  10. kids’ voices drifting over from across the road — recess

sept 23/RUN

4.1 miles
river road, north/south
61 degrees
humidity: 90% / dew point: 60

Yes, it was uncomfortably humid, and that’s all I’ll write about that. I memorized my rock chants before I left, then recited them as I ran. Here’s a snippet:

soft stone
shifts

hard stone
waits

sandstone
rubs

limestone
breaks

They worked pretty well, although it was hard to think of the words fast enough for my feet. Near the end of the run, I switched to some river words (3 1-syllable words):

drip drip drip
drop drop drop
stone stone stone

I was able to greet Dave, the Daily Walker — Morning Dave!, but forgot to greet the Welcoming Oaks. Saw some rowers climbing up the hill and leaving the rowing club. Noticed big bunches of purple wildflowers. Ran by the persistent crack that continues to settle and spread. Will they be able to fix it before the ground freezes? Wondered if the road closed ahead sign was because they were removing the safety fence they put in during their I-94 construction. Stopped at the top of some wooden steps leading down into the dark green of the Winchell Trail. Also stopped at the sliding bench to take a picture. A thought: what if I took a picture every week at this bench to track the slow and subtle changes?

from behind the sliding bench / 23 sept 2025

For future Sara, a brief recap: Jimmy Kimmel returns to his show tonight after being suspended/censored; Trump is claiming aspirin causes autism and that they’ve found a “cure” for it; and more leaves are turning yellow and red at the gorge.

sept 22/RUN

4.3 miles
minnehaha falls and back
61 degrees
humidity: 91% / dew point: 64

It rained last night, so everything was wet, even the air. Puddles, mud, slick leaves. Gushing sewer pipes, a roaring creek, fast-falling water.

I’m working on a series of chants for Girl Ghost Gorge. All triples. One for rock (a 2-syllable word/1 syllable word). One for river (3 1-syllable words). And one for air (1 3-syllable word).

During the first mile, I chanted for air: 

industry
convenience
resilience
persistence
underground
neighborhood

During the second mile, I chanted for rock:

paddle/wheel
roaring/creek
paving/stone

During the third mile, I chanted for water:

drip drip drip
drop drop drop
drip drop drip
drip drip drop

My plan for the chants is to use 1, 2, and 3 syllable words from my long poems for the chants. Right now I’m sorting them out.

10 Things

  1. wet red leaves scattered near the trail
  2. the smell of tar as I passed a park worker patching the trail (yay! they’re fixing the terrible spot on the bike path finally!)
  3. one woman to another: my ex-husband makes over a million dollars in his new job
  4. the yellow-vested park working, leaning and looking at his phone while he waited for the tar to be ready to smooth
  5. the squeak of a bike’s brakes
  6. bare branches poking out of the top of a tree
  7. the white froth from the falls
  8. 2 people sitting on the ledge of the bridge, their feet dangling over the falls
  9. a circle of bright water and sky, made by a break in the trees
  10. the smell of almost-cilantro from the tall grass surrounding the stone etched with Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha”

sept 14/RUN

4.1 miles
river road north/south
70 degrees
humidity: 88% / dew point: 68

Ugh! Uncomfortably warm again today. A flushed face and dripping ponytail. Was able to greet 2 regulars: Dave, the Daily Walker and Mr. Morning! Admired sparkles on the water, heard the coxswain from below, smelled the sourness of the sewer. I tried to do my “beat” experiment:

mile 1: triple berry chants strawberry/raspberry/blueberry
mile 2: listen to metronome at 175
mile 3: listen to music

I went too fast with the triple berries, then didn’t have the metronome turned up enough to feel the beat. By the time I got to mile 3, I was overheating. After that, it was difficult to run for that long. Lots of walking. I’ll have to try this experiment again when it is much cooler.

For the Girl Ghost Gorge collection I’m working on, I’ve decided to add some You Are Here poems: poems that locate me/the reader in one particular (and meaningful to me) location above or with or among the gorge.

possible you are here locations

  1. the trestle
  2. folwell bench
  3. sliding bench
  4. the edge of the world
  5. double bridge
  6. ancient boulder with stacked stones
  7. franklin hill
  8. turkey hollow
  9. 44th street ravine
  10. 42nd street ravine
  11. 35th street ravine
  12. welcoming oaks

sept 8/RUNSWIM

4.3 miles
veterans home and back
61 degrees

Fall! Noticed a few more slashes of orange and yellow and some red leaves on the ground. More acorn shells on the trail. At the beginning my knee — I can’t remember if it was the left or the right one — hurt, a dull not sharp pain. I can’t remember when it stopped. Maybe it was when I started feeling the rumbling of unfinished business. When I reached the falls, I went to the bathroom. I’m ready to be done with perimenopause.

Running south, I listened to chickadees and music blasting from a bike radio — I recognized the 70s or 80s rock song, but now I’ve forgotten what it was. Just past the Veterans home, I put in my “the Wheeling Life” playlist.

10 Things

  1. the sound of the rushing creek, 1: just before it falls over the limestone ledge
  2. the sound of the rushing creek, 2: far below, as I ran over the bridge to the Veterans Home
  3. a soft mist rising from the falling water
  4. a half-filled parking lot at the falls
  5. a full parking lot at the Veterans Home
  6. an empty parking lot at Locks and Dam no 1
  7. above on the bluff at Waban Park, a view of the river, the water rushing over the concrete, one white buoy, several redorangepink buoys
  8. an American flag waving near the Veterans Home
  9. strange flashes and a distorted view out of my central vision as I ran across the bridge — a result of facing the sun, I think
  10. soft shadows from the chain link fence on the bridge

While I ran, I chanted in triples. I was hoping to center or ground or locate myself in the time and place. First, berries, then:

I am here/I am here/I am here
I am now/I am now/I am now
I am here/I am here/I am here
It is now/It is now/It is now
here here here/ now now now/ here here here/ now now now

Then, I added a condensed version of some Emily Dickinson:

Life life life/death death death/bliss bliss bliss/breath breath breath

Then:

I am here/I am here/I am here/Here I am
123/123/123/123

Throughout the run, I thought about locating myself and how I might translate that for my project. A list of surfaces? my landmarks? a topographical map?

Reviewing old notes and entries, including 19 may 2025, which includes a bit on context, I encountered the phrase, there or there abouts. I had written it in my notebook after hearing it several times on the TNT coverage of the giro d’italia (the tour of italy cycling race). Yes. When I locate myself, it’s not here! or there. but there or thereabouts. Maybe that could be the title of a poem for the collection?

there or thereabouts

double bridge
old stone steps
ancient rock / stacked with stones
sliding bench
near the fence
under tree
on the edge (of the world)
high above
down below
in the flats
past the creek
wrapped in green
off the ground / in the air
deep in oak
riverside
locks and dam
sewer pipe
steep ravine
brand new trail
snowy path
in the groove
seeping hill
leaking ledge
eagle’s perch
spreading crack

Do I want to do this poem in triples? Not sure. It is how I locate myself sometimes — by chanting in triples about what’s around me. This syncs up my feet with my breath and my surroundings. But, how does it sound? And does it work as a poem?

A new poet to read and podcast episode to listen to!
Translation of the Lilies Back into Lists/ Laynie Brown
Laynie Brown: Apprentice to a Breathing Hand (tinhouse podcast)

swim: .75 loop
lake nokomis main beach
76 degrees
wind: 29 mph gusts

Another swim! When RJP told me the buoys were still up I knew I needed to swim again. Wow, it was choppy, and wow, that water was cold, but it wasn’t too cold and the choppy water was fun. I think there were whitecaps. In one direction, I could mostly ride the waves, the other direction, I punched water. Both fun, but in different ways. Speed from one, power the other. Got tangled in some vines, but nothing I couldn’t get out of. Noticed: soaring and hovering seagulls, held up by wind; planes, bobby buoys, voices, and water rushing over me, water crashing into me, water dragging me forward and sideways. I wouldn’t want to swim in water like that every time, but it was fun today.

aug 24/RUN

5.25 miles
bottom of franklin hill
58 degrees

Cooler! It makes such a difference for my running when it’s cooler outside. Easier, more relaxed. I’m looking forward to more fall and winter running! Running north I listened to the wind, the birds, a strange sound — a kid crying out? a dog barking? — coming out of a neighbor’s house. Running south I put in my “It’s Windy” playlist. Windy has stormy eyes/that flash at the sound of lies.

2 strange ensembles:

  1. a biker stopped on the edge of the path, his back turned to me. I almost didn’t see him because he blended into the trees. I think he was wearing a camo jacket and shorts. Why would you do that?
  2. a runner approaching me in a half-zipped shirt — or was it a bike kit? — and no socks or shoes. They were running barefoot. I’ve seen that before, but rarely. I thought that trend went away 7 or 8 years ago?

Early on, I chanted in triple berries: strawberry/raspberry/blueberry. Then, other triples: intellect/mystery/passing through/persistent/enduring. Persistent and enduring came as I passed by the big crack that they’ve tried to repair several times but just keeps coming back. I started thinking about my persistence and then stillness and deepening as steadiness, which led to thoughts of my core. I imagined my belly button was leading me. I thought in a triple: who needs eyes? Then I imagined seeing with my stomach or my shoulders or my feet. I focused on my center as balanced and stabilized and still as it moved through the windy bluff above the gorge. Finally, I thought about my belly button as the place that once tethered me directly to my mom. How long did these thoughts last? I’m not sure.

10 Things

  1. roller skiers
  2. someone wearing all black sitting at a bench
  3. river surface, 1: rough, empty
  4. river surface, 2: looking north it was flat, south a glitter path
  5. a shorter runner passing me, holding a sweatshirt awkwardly
  6. the big crack in the path, still blocked off
  7. no more limestone slabs stacked and looking like a lounging person under the franklin bridge
  8. a damaged fence: the top slat missing
  9. returning south, the wind was at my back, enabling me to go faster
  10. no stones stacked on the ancient boulder — too windy?

I thought about the wind and how I noticed it only as it encountered objects — trees, fences, rocks, me. Then I thought about what happens when it doesn’t encounter anything, which led me to wind tunnels and aerodynamic testing and then a line from Rita Dove’s poem, “Voice-over”:

because now you’re all throat,
a tunnel skewered by air.

june 17/RUNBIKESWIMBIKE

4 miles
river road, north/river road, south
67 degrees / dew point: 63

Started my run at 8:30, which was too late for how warm and humid it is. Even so, I felt strong and relaxed and confident that I could stick to my 9/1 plan and I did. As the runs get longer, I’m going to need to get up earlier. Chanted in triple berries — strawberry/blueberry/raspberry — then in other favorite triples — mystery history — then in triples that describe the world around me — worn dirt trail / old oak tree / cloaked green view / rushing cars

10 Things

  1. at least 2 roller skiers standing at the top of the franklin hill
  2. voices below — rowers!
  3. 2 minneapolis park trucks on the path, both hauling riding lawn mowers
  4. Mr. Morning!
  5. a big branch loaded with green leaves on the ground near the welcoming oaks, blocking a small section of the path
  6. 2 or 3 stones stacked on the ancient boulder
  7. the sliding bench was empty
  8. encountering Max, a big and gentle German Shepherd
  9. a mini-peloton on the road — a dozen or so bikes
  10. an older runner in bright orange compression socks standing in the middle of the walking path, gathering himself

I don’t remember thinking about much as I ran, other than that it was hot and that I knew I could keep going.

Yesterday, during my vision assessment, I mentioned reading about a way of training the eyes so that they could see outside of your blind spots. It was in a book by a famous author, but I couldn’t recall who. I knew they were from the 1900s and that they were male and I thought they were a philosopher, but I was drawing a blank on the name. At some point during the appointment, I was convinced it was Henry James. I was wrong. I looked it up today: Aldous Huxley and his book, The Art of Seeing. I wrote about it in this long on 13 sept 2020, including this quote from Huxley in the introduction:

Ever since ophthalmology became a science, its practitioners have been obsessively preoccupied with only one aspect of the total, complex process of seeing—the physiological. They have paid attention exclusively to eyes, not at all to the mind which makes use of the eyes to see with.

The Art of Seeing/ Aldous Huxley

How true is this assessment in 2025? Well, the study I am hopefully participating in is a collaboration between Ophthalmology and psychology at the U of M.

In the process of searching for the Huxley reference, I came across an article about low vision and reading. The specific ways that reading is difficult for me are different than this author, but the strange, and sometimes frustrating, sometimes delightful ways it (doesn’t) work resonate:

I try to figure out how apples connect to the topic, and how a noun just there might fit into the sentence, then give up and go back, to see the “i” that I missed when I first read “applies.” All those mistakes don’t happen at once. When my splotchy vision is not making me fail to grasp the point of an essay or fail to see the word “salt” in a recipe, it keeps me amused, keeps me aware of language itself. Who knew that “apples” is only one letter different from “applies”? Who could regret noticing that? 

As My Vision Deteriorates, Every Word Counts/ Alice Mattison

Reading more of the article, I find that her perspective on audiobooks resonates less:

Listening to an audiobook, I wouldn’t hear punctuation. True, an actor could produce the pauses, hesitations, and buildup that punctuation merely signals. But I like punctuation. I wouldn’t know whether the author had chosen a period or a semi-colon for the end of that main clause, wouldn’t know about em dashes, colons, parentheses, ellipses. Audiobooks are mediated. Another person would be present as I read. Worse, that person would have interpretive power, power over speed. Audiobooks happen in time, not space, like music or dance. Performance is indispensable but it isn’t the same as reading. 

My first reaction was to disagree with this assessment, but it has me thinking more about the idea of an audiobook as performance. I like listening to a good audiobook actor. And I love listening to an author who can read their own book well, like Zadie Smith. So what? Does that mean I’m not reading, and do we need to gatekeep what reading is? Now I’m wondering: what is reading?

Some thoughts about punctuation:

  • As I memorize poetry, I often struggle to write it down again later; I often mess up the punctuation. I memorize words, but rarely semi-colons or em dashes.
  • In Lucille Clifton’s rules for writing poetry, she suggests that a poet should write their lines in such a way that punctuation is never necessary — not sure where I stand on this
  • Isn’t the writer’s choice of punctuation a sort of mediation between reader and word?

bike: 8.7 miles
lake nokomis and back
78 degrees

Hooray for no problems on the bike! I could see well enough and I didn’t have to do any awkward passing. My left knee was a little stiff at the end, like it was 2 summers ago, but otherwise it was good. I liked biking to the lake before my swim, and biking back home after. Some things I remember: a line-up of traffic near the falls; kids playing in the creek; the pleasing curve of the new bike trail at lake hiawatha; the rush of water gushing out of the sewer pipe and into the ravine at 42nd; a surrey slightly off course; the bouncy stride of a runner.

swim: 2 loops
lake nokomis open swim
79 degrees

Open swim! A wonderful night for a swim. Not much wind, hardly any waves. I would have liked to do more than 2 loops but I didn’t want to push it and have a sore shoulder again. No problems going off course even though I could barely see the buoys. So little data, so much trust and belief in my ability to swim straight!

10 Things

  1. put my bag down under the lifeguard stand, next to some kid’s swim trunks that were swarming with gnats (gross!)
  2. milfoil reaching up from the bottom, thick and pale orange until it faded into the dark blue-green water
  3. cold water with pockets of warmer water
  4. baby bros (15 or 16? year-olds) playing football in the shallow water, cheering every time someone caught a pass or missed a pass
  5. the legs of another swimmer doing breaststroke, looking pale underwater
  6. bubbles! the translucent, almost white ones, that remind me of the bubbles in scooby doo
  7. my sparkle friends! the small glittering particles floating in the water
  8. open swim was set up a full 15 minutes early! the lifeguards have their shit together again this year
  9. the familiar form of the beach house dome, viewed mid-lake
  10. calling out to another swimmer — have fun! / you too!

A great swim. No deep thoughts or reciting water poems or noticing sounds or clouds or planes. As I get more fit, and spend more time in the water, these things will happen.

june 11/RUN

5.3 miles
ford loop
65 degrees / steady drizzle

Thought the rain wasn’t coming until later today so I got ready for my run — changed into my running clothes, stretched, put on my running shoes — then opened the door to drizzle. Decided to go anyway. At first, it was intermittent drizzle, but halfway through it became a steady, soft rain. Not enough to soak my shorts but enough to cool me off and to inspire a chant:

drip drip drop
drop
drip drip drip
drop

drop drip
drop drip
drop drip
drip drop

drip drip drip
drop drop drop

drop drop drip
drop drop drip
drop drop drip
drip

I continued my 9 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking plan and was successful. In the last mile, my left started to hurt a little, then my left calf, and my foot. It’s fine, but to be safe, I stopped at 5.3 miles. The run was never easy, but it also wasn’t hard to keep going, knowing that I had a walk break coming.

10 Things

  1. a soft green everywhere
  2. an empty river
  3. new trees wrapped in plastic looking like wild turkeys
  4. a dark tunnel of green with a bright circle of white at the end
  5. on your left / thank you!
  6. front yard tree with a giant boulder just in front of it
  7. empty benches except for the one near folwell: 2 people not sitting, but standing behind it
  8. the rumble of planes sounding like thunder
  9. the sharp clang of a mailbox lid falling shut
  10. chains from a trailer rattling and scraping on the rough road

green haze: Running on the east river road, quick glances over to the gorge — a soft green and silver view of trees and sky

I was delighted to discover halfway in that the poem-of-the-day on the Poetry Foundation is about rust! The entire poem is wonderful, but it’s long, so I’ll only post most of the rust part:

excerpt from “Que Sera Sera”/ A. Van Jordan

Like when a song gets so far out
on a solo you almost don’t recognize it,
but then you get back to the hook, you suddenly

recognize the tune and before you know it,
you’re putting your hands together; you’re on your feet—
because you recognize a sound, like a light,
leading you back home to a color:

rust. You must remember
rust—not too red, not too orange—not fire or overnight
change, but a simmering-summer
change in which children play till they tire

and grown folks sit till they grow edgy
or neighborhood dogs bite those not from your neigborhood
and someone with some sense says Down, Boy,
or you hope someone has some sense

who’s outside or who owns the dog and then the sky
turns rust and the streetlights buzz on
and someone’s mother, must be yours, says
You see those streetlights on don’t you,

and then everybody else’s mother comes out and says
the same thing and the sky is rust so you know
you got about ten minutes before she comes back out
and embarrasses you in front of your friends;

ten minutes to get home before you eat and watch
the Flip Wilson Show or Sanford and Son and it’s time for bed.
And it’s rust you need to remember
when the cop asks, What kind of work you do?

It’s rust you need to remember: the smell
of summer rain on the sidewalk
and the patina on wrought-iron railings on your front porch
with rust patches on them, and the smell

of fresh mowed grass and gasoline and sweat
of your childhood as he takes a step back
when you tell him you’re a poet teaching
English down the road at the college,

when he takes a step back—
to assure you, know, that this has nothing to do with race,
but the rust of a community he believes
he keeps safe, and he says Have a Good One,

meaning day as he swaggers back to his car,
and the color of the day and the face behind sunglasses
and the hands on his hips you’ll always remember
come back gunmetal gray

for the rest of this rusty afternoon.

Rust — I’ve been wanting to write a poem about rust for some time. Is this a sign that I should try today?

may 21/RUN

5.5 miles
ford loop
44 degrees
drizzle

Wasn’t planning to run the ford loop, but I started it and then just kept going. It felt good, relaxed, not hard to keep my heart rate a little lower. My pace was slow, but it didn’t feel slow, or fast, or any speed really.

10 Things

  1. mist
  2. dripping
  3. spray
  4. mirrors
  5. puddles
  6. graffiti
  7. traffic
  8. bridge
  9. debris
  10. slick

It rained all day yesterday, and some early in the morning. Started again during my run. Everything dripping wet, including me, although I didn’t really feel it, or couldn’t distinguish it from my sweat. Before I started running, as I walked through the neighborhood, I looked into the puddles on the sidewalk and admired how they had become mirrors, reflecting the sky and the trees. Running over the river, I looked down at the east bank and saw colorful graffiti all over the rocks at the base of the lake street bridge. In spots, the trail was slick with mud or covered in debris — fallen leaves, broken branches, grit. Crossing the ford bridge, I looked north and was delighted by the mist, making everything seem fuzzy and unformed. The traffic on the bridge was thick — I couldn’t see or feel any spray coming off of their wheels, but I could hear it.

overheard: one runner to another — you can bank the time.
Another use of time as a commodity.

Listened to the water, in its various forms, for the first half of my run. Put in my “moment” playlist for the second half. The most memorable song today: One Moment in Time/ Whitney Houston

A line that stood out to me:

And in that one moment of time
I will feel
I will feel eternity

I thought about Mary Oliver’s definition of eternity and how Whitney Houston’s doesn’t fit with it. MO understands eternity as creative time that’s outside of the ordinary and beyond the self. Houston’s eternity seems more like eternal glory.

As I listened to all of the lyrics, I thought about Whitney Houston’s tragic life and terrible death — an overdose. I also thought about the idea of one moment and what happens after that moment is over. And this made me think about post-Olympic blues, or post-marathon blues, or post-publishing a poem blues.

To keep myself distracted and steady, I chanted in triple berries —– strawberry blueberry raspberry. Then I chanted my poem — I go to the gorge/to find the soft space/between beats.

more on the moment as between

Read a very brief interview with Marie Howe the other day. She mentioned a poem that inspired her and that she wished everyone would read: The Season of Phantasmal Peace/ Derek Walcott. Beautiful! Here’s a line to remember that describes the moment:

and this season lasted one moment, like the pause
between dusk and darkness, between fury and peace

Before my run, I began listening to a talk by Jennifer Chang, “Other Pastorals: Writing Race and Place“. She mentions one between in the presentation of her thesis statement: how poets of color use pastoral to grapple with the complex composition of place as a tension between lived and learned experience. She recites another between from Rick Barot’s “On Gardens”: somewhere between/what the eye sees and what the mind thinks/is the world, landscapes mangled/into sentences, one color read into rage.

Chang also mentions context: If you look at the word “garden” deep enough you see it blossoming in an enclosure meant to keep out history and disorder.

Chang’s lecture is part of the Bread Loaf conference in 2019. This page has many great links for future Sara to explore.

And here is a helpful essay with some ideas for thinking about the pastoral, and links to poems, like Rita Dove’s Reverie in Open Air, which I’ve already posted on this log. The second half of Dove’s poems fits with early May’s theme of grass:

But this lawn has been leveled for looking,   
So I kick off my sandals and walk its cool green.   
Who claims we’re mere muscle and fluids?   
My feet are the primitives here.   
As for the rest—ah, the air now   
Is a tonic of absence, bearing nothing   
But news of a breeze.

And a few more grass lines from Jennifer Chang:

Stalk of wither. Grass-
noise fighting weed-noise. Dirt
and chant. Something in the
field.
(Pastoral/ Jennifer Chang)

What sound does grass make? Wind through the grass, crunching over dry, brittle grass, feet on grass — bunny’s feet:

 I think my favorite sound was the soft footsteps of the bunny hurrying across the lawn. A silvery whisper only possible to hear on a calm summer morning like today. I love the sound of animal feet moving — running or hopping through the grass

log entry on 16 july 2024