Ugh. Beautiful weather, but a more difficult run. Not sure if it was the pollen or the sun or my sore legs, but I struggled in the last 2 miles. Even so, it was wonderful to be out beside the river. I was able to greet Dave the Daily Walker and Mr. Morning!. I have decided that like me, Mr. Morning! has (at least) 2 versions: Winter Mr. Morning! and Summer Mr. Morning (mine are Winter Sara and Summer Sara). Winter Mr. Morning! heads south on the river road trail and wears a parka and a stocking cap. Summer Mr. Morning! heads north on the river road trail and wears shorts and a button up short-sleeved shirt. Both versions are enthusiastic in their greetings and wear transition lenses, or maybe just sunglasses. I often wonder, is Mr. Morning! that enthusiastic with everyone, or just people like me that he encounters a lot, all of us regulars?
Speaking of regulars, I have a new one: an older male runner with white hair who shuffle-runs — or does a combination of walk-running or run-walking — and is very friendly. I recall seeing him probably half a dozen times over the last 5+ years. The thing I remember most about him, other than his great spirit, is his greeting. One time it was, “Happy Fourth of July!” and today it was, “Happy Spring!”. I think I’ll call him Mr. Holiday.
Other things that happened: I greeted all of the welcoming oaks (in my head); noticed there were no stones stacked on the boulder; marveled at how quickly the leaves have filled in below me in the floodplain forest; looked for, but didn’t find, any rowers on the river; noticed how the river was blue as I ran west, and brown as I ran east; watched a plane slip through the clouds above me; didn’t see an eagle perched on the dead limb of the tree near the lake street bridge; and wondered how flooded Meeker Island Dam dog park was as I ran by a sign that read, “closed due to flooding.”
5 miles franklin bridge and back 17 degrees / feels like 7
What a gift this winter-almost-spring run is this morning! A reminder of why I love winter runner with its cold, crisp air and quiet calm. It was a little difficult to breathe, with my nose closing up on me (hooray for sinuses), and it didn’t always feel effortless. Still, I was happy to be outside with the world — the birds (pileated woodpeckers, geese, cardinals), the Regulars (Dave, the Daily Walker and Daddy Long Legs), and the river, sometimes brown, sometimes blue.
Before I went out for my run, I read a lot of different poems and essays about poetry and breath. Decided I would think about rhythmic breathing, running rhythms, and chants. I started by counting my foot strikes, them matching it up with my breathing of In 2 3/ Out 2 or Out 2/ In 2 3: 123/45, 123/45 then 54/321, 54/321. A few miles later, I thought about a verse from Emily Dickinson’s poem, ‘Tis so much joy! Tis so much joy!” that I imagine to be a prayer or a spell or reminder-as-chant. I started repeating it in my head:
Life is but Life! And Death, but Death! Bliss is, but Bliss, and Breath but Breath!
With this prayer/chant, I matched the words up to my foot strikes in several different ways, none of which were 123/45 or 54/321.
Equal stress on each syllable/word, and the altering of the poem slightly:
Life Is But Life Death Is But Death Bliss Is But Bliss Breath Is But Breath
Then in ballad form (I think?), with alternating lines of: stressed un un stressed / 3 stressed but silent beats (or not silent, but voiced by my feet, striking the ground):
Life is but Life x x x Death is but Death x x x Bliss is but Bliss x x x Breath is but Breath x x x
Then in 6, with 2 feet of stressed, unstressed, unstressed (a dactyl):
Life is but Life is but Life is but Life is but Death is but Death is but Death is but Death is but Bliss is but Bliss is but Bliss is but Bliss is but Breath is but Breath is but Breath is but Breath is but
Then in 4 again, one spoken beat, three silent:
Life xxx Life xxx Life xxx Life xxx
Or, like “The Safety Dance”:
Life life life life Death death death death Bliss bliss bliss bliss Breath breath breath breath
These were so much fun to do, and helpful in keeping me going as I grew tired. When I chanted them, my pace was about 8:40 and my heart rate was in the upper 170s (pretty standard for me). At one point, I pulled out my phone and recorded myself mid-run. Later, when I stopped running and was walking back, I recorded myself again.
Dickinson chant during run Dickinson chant after run
It’s interesting to check back with the poem now and see that I had added words to make the rhythm more steady and even. Seeing how Dickinson wrote it, I want to try these chants on another run with the right words. How will I fit “And Death, but Death!” with my feet? Is this part of Dickinson’s disruption of rhythm?
I like the repetition of these chants and how, if you repeat them enough, they lose their meaning, or change meaning, or change the space you’re running through, or change you. It reminds me of some lines from a poem I recently wrote about running by the gorge and rhythmic breathing. It’s in 3/2, In 2 3/Out 2:
I
settle in- to a
rhythm: 3 then 2.
First counting foot strikes,
then chanting small prayers.
I beat out meaning
until what’s left are
syllables, then sounds,
then something new, or
old, returned.
Wow, this is so much fun for me, thinking through how my running, and breath, and poetry, and body, and the words work (and sometimes don’t work) together. Very cool.
And, here’s a poem that doesn’t fit neatly with my running rhythm/chants, but fits with the idea of getting outside to move by the river:
3.5 miles trestle turnaround 16 degrees / feels like 4 snowing 100% snow-covered, at least an inch of loose snow
Snowing all day today. Usually, I wait until it stops and the trails have been plowed before I go out for a run, but not today. Decided to dig out my oldest yak trak and run through the snow. Loved it! A few parts weren’t fun: the wind blowing sharp shards of snow on my face, into my eyes, how slick and soft and difficult it was to run through. The rest of it was great. Quiet, calm, dreamy.
10 Things I Noticed
the regular, Santa Claus, bundled up in a bright orange jacket, with black running tights
a fat tire, their light cutting through the grayish white
almost everything looked soft, blanketed in snow; many things felt hard, sharp pellets of icy snow stinging my face
a car disappearing into the falling snow, near the trestle
a runner in glowing yellow
geese overhead, honking
impatient chickadees, their fee bee calls overlapping
the river: a lot of white, with streaks of dark, open water
4 people emerging from the forest below, crossing the river road
running on the road, at the end, mesmerized by the endless, blank white beneath me, feeling like I was running in place, or running through nothing, or not moving, just suspended in white
Time for another Chang/Merwin combo. I love this chance to reflect on Victoria Chang’s short poems, and be introduced to more of W.S. Merwin’s work. Today’s pairing starts with Chang’s “Daylight.” I couldn’t find a poem by Merwin with that exact title, so I settled for “The Wings of Daylight.” Is it the poem Chang is referencing? Not sure.
Daylight/ Victoria Chang
One by one, days died, even they weren’t protected. They have no symptoms but keep dying. They want to fix melancholy, to keep coming back to no answers, to take the depositions of orchards.
Brightness appears showing us everything it reveals the splendors it calls everything but shows it to each of us alone and only once and only to look at not to touch or hold in our shadows what we see is never what we touch what we take turns out to be something else what we see that one time departs untouched while other shadows gather around us the world’s shadows mingle with our own we had forgotten them but they know us they remember us as we always were they were at home here before the first came everything will leave us except the shadows but the shadows carry the whole story at first daybreak they open their long wings
Just at freezing, but the feels like temp was in the 20s. I was not cold, but too warm after a few minutes. Next time, I should lose a layer, or maybe the vest? Overcast, not too much wind. Admired the floodplain forest, bare branches with a deep yellowish brown floor. Crossed the river at lake street. Don’t remember the water, but I do remember the 3 people on the shore, near the bridge, with big white garbage bags — volunteers cleaning up? Forgot to look over at shadow falls, or listen for the water that only falls after it’s rained.
Thought about my series of poems on haunting/haunted. The one I’m working on is about all the people who frequent/haunt the trail. I’m calling them, The Regulars. Trying to figure out where and how the Dakota people fit into this idea of the regulars. At first, I thought about using we and thinking very loosely about that “we”– not a community of regulars, but a gathering of people past, present, and future who all frequent/inhabit a space — but this felt wrong, not giving enough room for recognizing who can and can’t inhabit this space and who was forced off of this land. It seems too soon (or ever possible?) to claim a we and it flattens out the differences between how and why the gorge is haunted. I’m not sure how to address this, but I want to devote more time to it and feeling uncomfortable about it—maybe this discomfort and my uncertainty about it is something my poems should circle/orbit around as I struggle to find better words and an understanding?
Here’s a wonderful poem I encountered this morning that connects more broadly to the treatment of indigenous peoples by white settlers and the US government:
I use a trick to teach students how to avoid passive voice.
Circle the verbs. Imagine inserting “by zombies” after each one.
Have the words been claimed by the flesh-hungry undead? If so, passive voice.
I wonder if these sixth graders will recollect, on summer vacation, as they stretch their legs on the way home from Yellowstone or Yosemite and the byway’s historical marker beckons them to the site of an Indian village—
Where trouble was brewing. Where, after further hostilities, the army was directed to enter. Where the village was razed after the skirmish occurred. Where most were women and children.
Riveted bramble of passive verbs etched in wood— stripped hands breaking up from the dry ground to pinch the meat of their young red tongues.
5 miles bottom of franklin hill and back 35 degrees wet snow flurries!
It begins! Cold air, layers, snow. Winter is almost here. Everything was already wet when I started, then, at some point, it started sleeting or snowing or something in-between. I didn’t care; I had a hood and a water resistant vest. Greeted Dave the Daily Walker and a new regular who I don’t have a name for yet. No distinguishing features that my fuzzy eyes can see–an older man, not too tall or short, not too big or small, white. All I remember is his enthusiasm and the joyful ways he waves or greets me with a “morning.” Am I even sure it’s the same person every time?
When I got to the bottom of the franklin hill I stopped to dictate a line for the poem I’m working on. Yesterday I struggled to get through a section on bells and ghosts. Early this morning, I had a breakthrough but still needed to work on the last line. I figured a run would help, and it did. Hooray for running and its ability to get me unstuck!
After that, I put in a playlist and listened to music for the rest of my run, which made me run about 1 minute per mile faster. I felt like I was flying. Free and fast and untethered.
10 Things I Noticed
The color palatte of the day: light gray, dark brown, spicy mustard yellow, slate blue, light green
Running down the franklin hill noticed that half of the tree line was bare, half was a light green
Running through the tunnel of trees, looking down on the floodplain forest: here you can’t see the river, only an endless stretch of forest floor and bare trees
Almost to the the bottom of the hill, a snow/rain drop fell straight into my eye — ouch
Some geese honking, sounding agitated
A chirping whistling bird, sounding like spring, a woman stopped on the path, craning her neck, looking for the source of these sounds (at least, that’s what I imagine she was doing)
Flashing lights from a parks or city vehicle, glowing brighter in the gloom
The vase of flowers still perched on the ledge below the railroad trestle
A bright white paper towel or plastic bag laying on the path, just past the franklin bridge
A very fast runner that I saw twice in shorts and a bright orange long-sleeved shirt
The river rose wildly every seventh spring or so, and down the hatch went the town, just a floating hat box or two, a cradle, a cellar door like an ark to float us back into the story of how we drown but never for good, or long. How the ornate numbers of the bank clock filled with flood, how we scraped minute by minute the mud from the hours and days until the gears of time started to catch and count again. Calamity is how the story goes, how we built the books of the Bible. Not the one for church, but the one the gods of weather inscribed into our shoulder blades and jawbones to grant them grit enough to work the dumb flour of day into bread and breath again. The world has a habit of ending, every grandmother and father knew well enough never to say, so deeply was it stained into the brick and mind. We live in the meantime is how I remember the length of twilight and late summer cicadas grinding the air into what seemed like unholy racket to us, but for them was the world’s only music.
Still a little warm, but fall is here. Another great morning — sunny and cooler than last week. I wore shorts and a long sleeve shirt (my bright yellow 10 mile race shirt from a few years ago). For the first few minutes, I was chilly, but I warmed up quickly. I wouldn’t mind running in this weather every day. Frequently counted to 4. Sometimes felt strong, sometimes tired.
10 Things I Noticed
The Welcoming Oaks have lost most of their golden leaves
The tunnel of trees and my favorite spot above the floodplain forest is slowly turning yellow. Still lots of green and no view of the river yet
The new asphalt, put down only last year, near the trestle is cracking already. In addition to the long cracks, people have spray-painted a peace sign, an anarchy sign, and something else that looks like squiggly lines to me
Running over the franklin bridge, thought I saw a rower on the river, but the railing blocked my view. Every time I turned back, I could almost see it, believed it was there, but could never fully see it. Finally, almost across the bridge, I looked back and there it was: a single shell
The river was mostly a pale blue with the dark edges — the result of trees on the shore casting their shadows into the water like fishermen
A dog barking below
No stones stacked on the ancient boulder
Another regular: the guy with big headphones on who I used to see on the track at the Y. Last week I saw him near the east side of the trestle, today it was below the lake st bridge on the marshall side
Running back over the lake st bridge, I admired the rowers on the river. 6 rowers. 2 single shells and 2 doubles
An older man running on the other side of the bridge, shirtless
My shadow was running in front of me for part of the time. I thought about her as a ghost, or me as a ghost, then about all of the running or walking feet that have landed on this path. I thought about other people — the ones still alive who frequent the trail, like me, and the ones who are dead. I wondered about the old woman whose death, caused by a speeding bike in the 70s, resulted in separate biking and running trails on the west side of the river. Where was she struck? I looked it up, and the only thing I had correct: a woman was struck and killed by a bike and the outrage over her death led to the creation of separate bike trails. BUT, it was not on the river road, but at Lake Harriet, and she wasn’t old, but 58. (Source) I thought about all of the past Saras that have run this trail too. How many of us are there?
Warm again this morning. More fall colors — mostly golds with a few hints of red. Recited “Spring and Fall” a few times, but didn’t think about it much. I might memorize a few fall poems for October.
10 Things I Noticed
The river glowing through the trees
A kid’s cry coming from somewhere
Several loud rustling sounds in the dry underbrush
Two or three wild turkeys near the start of the Winchell Trail, on the other side of the chain link fence. I’ve never encountered them here before!
The curve of a log, serving as a bench at the frisbee golf course in Wabun Park
A loud chirping sound that might have been a bird or a squirrel
The flailing arms of an approaching runner
High in the sky, the moon, faintly glowing
The new (is it new?) fence surrounding one side of the bottom of the ford bridge near Locks and Dam #1
A few regulars: the older man (mid 60s, white hair) runner whose fast and friendly and the walker with shoulder length blonde hair
A solid run that improved my mood.
Here’s my approximate/almost/not quite poem of the day:
3.15 miles trestle turn around 72 degrees humidity: 81%/ dew point: 65
Thunderstorm early this morning then sun and humidity. I’m pretty sure the Olympian Carrie Tollefeson passed me right before the lake street bridge. Very cool. Heard some black capped chickadees. Ran up 43rd ave then down 32nd st to the river so I was able to run right by the aspen eyes. Didn’t hear any rowers or see the river or any “regulars,” like the Daily Walker or last year’s man in black or the tall, slim, older man in the running shorts. I don’t see any regulars this year. Strange and sad.
Recited the first half of Maria Howe’s “The Meadow” — a poem I memorized 3 years ago when I was injured but have mostly forgotten. I had been planning to memorize Wordsworth’s “I wander lonely as a cloud” but it seemed too cheesy or sing song-y or poem-y (whatever that means). I think I’ll wait to memorize his snowflake this next winter instead.
As we walk into words that have waited for us to enter them, so the meadow, muddy with dreams, is gathering itself together
and trying, with difficulty, to remember how to make wildflowers. Imperceptibly heaving with the old impatience, it knows
for certain that two horses walk upon it, weary of hay. The horses, sway-backed and self important, cannot design
how the small white pony mysteriously escapes the fence everyday. This is the miracle just beyond their heavy-headed grasp,
and they turn from his nuzzling with irritation. Everything is crying out. Two crows, rising from the hill, fight
and caw-cry in mid-flight, then fall and light on the meadow grass bewildered by their weight. A dozen wasps drone, tiny prop planes
sputtering into a field a farmer has not yet plowed, and what I thought was a phone, turned down and ringing,
is the knock of a woodpecker for food or warning, I can’t say. I want to add my cry to those who would speak for the sound alone.
On my walk home after I finished, I recorded myself reciting this first half. A few wrong words or forgotten phrases. I love the line, “this is the miracle just beyond their heavy-headed grasp” and the pleasing rhymes in “two crows fight and caw-cry mid-flight, then fall and light on the meadow grass”
The Meadow, first half, July 11
Discovered Antonio Machado, a Spanish poet who lived from 1875-1939, and his delightful “Proverbs and Canticles” yesterday. Here are a few:
canticle: a hymn or chant, typically with a bible verse
I
The mode of dialogue, my friends, is first to question: then . . . attend.
III
The poets does not pursue the fundamental I but the essential you.
IV
In writing verses, seek to give them a double light: one to read square by, one oblique.
4.3 miles mississippi river road path, north/south 19 degrees/feels like 19 degrees 100% snow-covered
feels like: this snow is here to stay forever, the white is too bright, a strange dream, slick, soft, sibilant
layers: (too much) green shirt, orange shirt, black jacket, black vest, buff, hood, visor, 2 pairs of tights, 1 pair of socks. gloves. 2 miles in, the gloves came off.
Not much sun but the snow was very bright. So white. White path, white walls, white sky. No snow on the river though. Walking, right before I started running, I heard the birds. Determined to make spring come soon. They started chirping a few weeks ago. The run was fun. I like running on snow, even if it is uneven in spots. Encountered a few other runners, the Daily Walker!, the man in black (the one I mentioned yesterday)–we greeted each other and he seems very nice so I’m not freaked out by how tall he is now, 2 fat tires, a few dogs. Thought about the marathon again as I neared the franklin bridge. Also thought about a poem I read this morning: Robert Duncan’s “Often I am Permitted to Return to a Meadow.” I was trying to think about the made place in my mind that I return to. I struggled to hold onto any thought about the poem or places I imagine. I kept thinking about my breathing and not slipping on a slick spot or twisting my ankle on an ice chunk.
Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow Robert Duncan
as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,
that is not mine, but is a made place,
that is mine, it is so near to the heart,
an eternal pasture folded in all thought
so that there is a hall therein
that is a made place, created by light
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.
Wherefrom fall all architectures I am
I say are likenesses of the First Beloved
whose flowers are flames lit to the Lady.
She it is Queen Under The Hill
whose hosts are a disturbance of words within words
that is a field folded.
It is only a dream of the grass blowing
east against the source of the sun
in an hour before the sun’s going down
whose secret we see in a children’s game
of ring a round of roses told.
Often I am permitted to return to a meadow
as if it were a given property of the mind
that certain bounds hold against chaos,
that is a place of first permission, everlasting omen of what is.
This poem is the first poem in Duncan’s 1960 book, The Opening of the Field. He was part of the Black Mountain Poets. Charles Olson was another member of the Black Mountain Poets. In doing some research on Duncan and this poem, I encountered Olson’s idea of projective verse: poetry shaped by rhythms of poet’s breath. So cool–I want to explore this more, thinking about breathing when I run vs. walk vs. sit.
Olson argues that the breath should be a poet’s central concern, rather than rhyme, meter, and sense. To listen closely to the breath, Olson states, “is to engage speech where it is least careless—and least logical.” The syllable and the line are the two units led by, respectively, the ear and the breath:
“the HEAD, by way of the EAR, to the SYLLABLE the HEART, by way of the BREATH, to the LINE”
poetry foundation introduction to “Projective Verse”