Tag: water

june 22/RUNBIKESWIM

run: 2 miles
2 trails
81 degrees
dew point: 73

Before biking over for a swim, I decided to run a few miles in the heat. 7 am and already 81. Ugh. Even with the heat, it was nice to get out by the gorge. Was able to greet Mr. Morning. I know I looked at the river, but I don’t remember what I saw. Was it blue? Probably. Was it shimmering? Possibly. Didn’t hear any rowers or roller skiers. A few bikes on the trail, 4 bikes on the road, out for a serious ride, hugging the curb to let cars go by. I heard sprinklers and dripping water and scattered voices.

image: walking up the 38th street steps from the winchell trail to the river road trail, the undersides of the steps had a faint colorful glow — one step was purple, another pink, orange, green, red, yellow. Was it the light? No someone had used chalk to color the steps. For Pride month, I’m assuming. Very cool.

The Alchemist/ Louise Bogan

I burned my life, that I might find 
A passion wholly of the mind, 
Thought divorced from eye and bone, 
Ecstasy come to breath alone. 
I broke my life, to seek relief 
From the flawed light of love and grief.

With mounting beat the utter fire 
Charred existence and desire. 
It died low, ceased its sudden thresh.
I found unmysterious flesh—
Not the mind’s avid substance—still
Passionate beyond the will.

mind/body split described as thought divorced from the eye and bone, and breath alone

unmysterious flesh — not pure mind but something passionate beyond mind and will

I like the rhyme here; it doesn’t feel forced

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
84 degrees (there) / 88 (back)

So windy and hot! Difficult, especially on the way there. I seemed to be always biking straight into the wind and out of the shade. Other than the heat and the wind and the bright sun, it was great. I’m feeling comfortable on my bike this year.

5 Bike Things / 5 Swim Things

  1. bike: a big bird — eagle? turkey vulture? — soaring above the falls parking lot
  2. bike: another biker far ahead, looking small and just in the center of my vision, reminding me of the far off barn in the vision test
  3. bike: so many e-bikes on the trail, which I think is good and not good — it’s complicated
  4. bike: more kids splashing and swimming and yelling in the creek — didn’t see them, but heard them and saw an inner tube on the side of the trail
  5. bike: the stand of trees to the right of the bike trail in the stretch between lake hiawatha and lake nokomis looked deep green and cool and inviting
  6. swim: minnows and small 6 inch fish near the shore
  7. swim: the underwater plants looked orange or greenish brown and they didn’t look like plumes or feathers, but like christmas tree branches. did they have an attitude of a plume? what would that be — ornamental? showy? preening? Nope, these plants had an attitude of a fungus or rash or disease — spreading, taking over, menacing
  8. the light underwater: I can see them as bars, a series of them, slanted and spread out from one central point
  9. sparkling water above, sparkle friends below
  10. so choppy from the wind, rocking me — not gentle but not rough either

swim: 3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
86 degrees

It was so windy and choppy that they couldn’t put the green buoys in. Just 3 orange buoys today and out and back. I thought maybe I would only do 2 loops, but I felt good enough to do a third. Nice work! The choppy water was difficult — especially breathing — but I liked it. I thought about a poem I wrote that has yet to find a home about stroking straight into waves. Not fighting the lake but taking up its challenge.

The water is still fairly clear and I enjoyed looking at the vegetation and the lake floor as I approached the shore. Much easier to tell when it’s shallow enough to stand up!

During one loop, noticing the sparkle on the water, I suddenly felt happy and grateful and content. What a life! I love swimming in this water.

Just remembered something else: stroking roughly through the water, being buffeted by waves, I felt like a boat moving across choppy water, half-submerged. Yesterday, I was talking to FWA about how I imagine myself less of a fish, more of a boat.

more from Anne Carson and “An Essay on Swimming”:

Saturday 6:30 a.m. Swimming.

the motion of the strange white hands. Gold rungs slide past beneath. Red water plants waver up from the bottom in an attitude of plumes. How slow is the slow trance of wisdom, which the swimmer swims into.

Are my hands white when I swim, or is it just the legs and feet of other swimmers?
Not shafts of light but gold rungs?
The water plants are orange or green, but never red, right? (I’ll check tomorrow).
Plumes is a better description than feathers.
The slow trance of wisdom. Swimming for over an hour in lake nokomis puts me in a trance, for sure.

Friday 8 a.m. Swimming.

On the surface the water is navy blue and
corrugated by wind. Spots of white foam crowd hectically up
and down the waves. there is an urgency to it as if a telephone
were ringing in the house. But there is no telephone in the house.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the lake surface navy blue, but I have seen it corrugated. I like that word as a description for a rough surface.

urgency like a telephone ringing in a house, but there is no house. Is there a name for experiencing the same feeling but in a different context. I don’t think this is just metaphor, or is it?

Wednesday 8:30 a.m. Swimming.

the swimmer inserts himself into the dark green glass.

Wednesday 5:45 p.m. Swimming.

The lake is cool and rippled by an inattentive wind. The swimmer moves heavily through an oblique greenish gloom of underwater sunset

from an earlier essay in The Anthropology of Water: “The Wishing Jewel: Introduction to Water Margins:

My brother once showed me a piece of quartz that contained, he said, some trapped water older than all the seas in our world. This line reminds me of a poem I re-encountered yesterday during my “on this day” reading practice:

from Conversation with a Pebble/Alyson Hallett

I kiss the pebble,
Watch the moisture from my lips sink in.

That’s what I’m hiding,
It says. Water. The tiniest Rivers, lakes, seas.

Ideas of what water
Can be. Yes, pebble says,
I am hiding all the world’s memory.

5

I’ve probably missed some, but here are the five letter words (minus plurals) that I found in this entry:

gorge
greet
river
trail
heard
water
voice
street
trail
faint
green
light
chalk
color
pride
month
split
alone
rhyme
windy
shade
great
eagle
above
ahead
small
think
creek
inner
stand
right
brownplume
point
below
rough
today
maybe
third
still
clear
floor
shore
happy
being
about
white
slide
waver
trance
other
never
check

rough windy rhyme
stand still today
below color trance
waver above water
faint floor shore
above gorge being
think inner creek
never point alone
happy water slide
great white check

This is fun!

june 21/RUN

4 miles
the Monument and back
82 degrees
dew point: 74

Last night I decided I would get up early and do a 7 mile run. Then I checked the forecast. 80 at 6 am. What? No thanks. I went to bed thinking I might skip running today and tomorrow (the low is 80). Then I woke up at 6 and even though it felt oppressive outside, I decided to go for a run. Maybe a 5k. Somehow, without meaning to, I ran 4 miles. It was hard. I felt almost dizzy once as I walked up the lake street bridge steps. And I’m glad I did it. Even with a few extra walk breaks I consider this run a victory.

Yes, it was warm and uncomfortable, but it was worth it for the quiet and for the strange light: darker, a little ominous, the green so deep, not glowing but pulsing? not sure what word I would use.

10+ Things

  1. on the lake street bridge from east to west, to the right a pale blue sky, to the left darker blueish-purple
  2. on the lake street bridge, wind blowing hard from the south, a bird getting a boost and flying so fast
  3. from the monument, I could her Shadow Falls dripping
  4. small white caps on the river
  5. the gentle slope of a mowed stretch of grass between Shadow Falls and the Monument
  6. the shuffling of a runner’s feet across the road
  7. the clicking and clacking of ski poles through the trees and on the other side of the ravine
  8. at the Monument, the line of narrow paving stones near the water fountain — they looked old — when were they placed here and who did it?
  9. the swirling and waving of some wildflowers in the wind
  10. taking off my cap on the bridge because of the wind, feeling it hit my face and grab my hair
  11. encountered the runner who wears bright orange compression socks*

*I’ve encountered this runner enough that they’re officially a regular. I think I’ll call him Mr. Orange Socks

Listened to the wind and dripping water and the heavy air for 3 of the miles. Put in my “It’s Windy” playlist for the final mile. Windy has stormy eyes that flash at the sound of lies.

Encountered two Anne Carson poems this morning and it feels like a sign, or a nudge, to keep reading her The Anthropology of Water. One of this poems was from an 21 june entry in 2022 (Could I), and this one from today’s poem of the day:

Between Us And/ Anne Carson

BETWEEN US AND
animals is a namelessness.
We    flail    around
generically      —
camelopardalis   is   what
the Romans came up with
or  ”giraffe” ( it looked to
them like a camel crossed
with a leopard ) or get the
category wrong — a musk
Ox isn’t an ox at all but
more closely cognate with
the  goat —  and   when
choosing   to    name
individual  animals  we
pretend they are objects
(Spot) or virtues (Beauty)
or just other selves (Bob).

The idea of knowing the names of things has come up before on this blog. There’s the act of naming something, which is addressed in this poem and evidenced in my naming of “regulars,” and there is also the act of learning the name that a living thing calls itself. Robin Wall Kimmerer (Gathering Moss in 22 march 2024 entry), JJJJJerome Ellis (“A Litany of Names” from Aster of Ceremonies), and Alice Oswald (“Violent” in 16 feb 2025 entry) all describe this in their writing.

an hour later: Taking up the nudge to read more Anne Carson, I returned to The Anthropology of Water. I focused on the final section, “Margins: An Essay on Swimming By My Brother.” Wow! So many great descriptions of what it feels like to swim in a lake! I need to make a list.

I may have posted this bit before, but here’s Carson’s answer to the question, How does swimming figure into your writing?

It keeps me from being morose and crabby. Sometimes I think in the pool. Usually it’s a bad idea. The ideas you have in the pool are like the ideas you have in a dream, where you get this sentence that answers all questions you’ve ever had about reality and you get up groggily and write it down, and in the morning, it looks like “let’s buy bananas” or something completely irrelevant. Plus, I like water. Some people just need to be near water.

Interview in Paris Review

I am one of those people who needs be near water.

Back to the “An Essay on Swimming.” I like how it’s structured: journal entries titled with day of the week and time and either swimming or not swimming. Here’s the second entry:

Friday 4:00 p.m. Swimming.

In late afternoon the lake is shaded. There is the sudden luxury of the places where the cold springs come flooding up around the swimmer’s body from below like an opening dark green geranium of ice. Marble hands drift enormously in front of his face. He watches them move past him down into the lower water where red stalks float in dust. A sudden thin shaft of fish smell. No sleep here, the swimmer thinks as he shoots along through the utterly silent razor-glass dimness. One drop of water entirely awake.

I like how there’s no date. It’s placed in time, but vaguely.

that sudden luxury! I welcome those cold patches in lake nokomis when I swim but I don’t think they’re from cold springs. What are they from? Now when I feel them I will think: I’m being flooded with a dark green geranium of ice!

marble hands — yes! that’s how I should describe the pale legs and hands of swimmers that I’ve seen recently.

where red stalks float in dust — for me: curled green feathers that do more than float, they seem to reach up to/for me.

that’s me: one drop of water entirely awake

Recap, and to put on a list of Carson’s water descriptions to use/think about as I swim:

  • I’m being flooded with a dark green geranium of ice!
  • marble hands and legs
  • stalks that reach to/for me
  • me as one drop of water entirely awake

june 9/REST

I might have biked or swam today if it hadn’t been so breezy and cool. 57 degrees? No thanks. Tomorrow, no matter the temperature, I’ll be swimming in the lake! Open swim! Open swim!

Become/River/ Meridian Johnson

How does it feel
              to be
in that moment before we take the full-length of our flesh?
Lie still and breathe.
There are no mistakes here.
Stillness of mind.

The universe is a shawl to wrap about the shoulders
              dark     pervasive
                           ever-sensing.

                           By the river two ducks fly above the morning current.
On the opposite bank
              two black dogs rousing the bushes.
The naked tree shadows scratch the ground, shifting through wind.

To own the space deep in the cell
                           deeper
                                          deeper yet
                                                            cobalt blue.
                                                            The Beginning.

When we’re giving ourselves that much space
principle shimmering                                          intake.

                                                                              The river begins.

The naked tree shadows scratch the ground, shifting through wind. I love this description of tree shadows on the ground!

When we’re giving ourselves that much space . . . the river begins. I’m thinking about the idea of rivering — to river — that poets have discussed. who? I’ll search for it on this log. Found some!

from swims/ Elizabeth-Jane Burnett

The river is something that happens,
like exercise or illness, to the body
on any given day
I am rivering.

Not that the river is like the body
or the river is the body
but ooooooooooo both have gone
and what is left is something else.

a thought from 16 aug 2022: I wonder, is there such a thing as lake-ing? How does it differ from rivering? Also: what is the something else that is left? I like the idea of the water being a verb and not a noun.

opening line from Gave/ Cole Swensen

no river rivers 

What is to river? I can imagine rivering as the act of being beside and with the river — walking or running — or in it — swimming, rowing — witnessing the river.

a note for future Sara: Since we (the Saras) are interested in this sort of thing, here’s how I found this poem:

  1. reading past entries from 9 june, I clicked on a link to an essay about green poems that I mentioned in 2019 (good job past Sara!)
  2. read through the essay, and clicked on the link for a poem discussed in it: Reverent Green
  3. which is in a lit journal called, Wildness.
  4. checked out the submission guidelines — I’m going to submit here! — where it was recommended that I read through past issues to see what they’re looking for
  5. scrolled through the issue from 2017 that Reverent Green is in and found Become/River

Back to the river and rivering. Every summer, during open swim season, I devote myself to water, especially the lake. A perpetual question: how does a lake form of water differ from its river form or rain form (it’s raining right now) or sweat form or puddle form or glass of water form or creek form? Will this be the summer that I’m able to write a poem/poems about this? I hope so!

Before writing these last few sentences, I intended to give attention to green, and growing in green, and my ekphrasis project, and circumambulation, but now I’m thinking it’s time to return to water. It is time now, I said, for the deepening and quieting of the spirit among the flux of happenings.

I’m remembering last year’s attention given to the rules of water (Anne Carson) and liquid looking (Alice Oswald). Yes! Time for summer/swimming-Sara to emerge!

hardly creatures

Still reading and thinking about Rob Macaisa Colgate’s Hardly Creatures and how it’s inspiring me with its inventive form and powerful voice. A few things:

  1. the collection as a museum, organized around different wings of an imagined building (“a gallery of our own”), including: entryway, fine art, audiovisual room, gift shop/exit. What if I created a collection of poems about the gorge that was organized around a route, with different sections corresponding to different landmarks?
  2. places to rest or to gather strength or to be cared for: the “bench” sections, which are all about Eli, Colgate’s partner. Benches have become increasingly important in my gorge running practice. I have started regularly pausing at a few benches, and I have made note of the plaques on many of them. Ooo — maybe benches could be a theme for a month!
  3. “Hopescrolling” — labeled as ALT text and consisting of a series of brief descriptions of engagement with social media

Speaking of “Hopescrolling,” here’s RMColgate’s explanation of the poem:

JGJ: Can we talk about “Hopescrolling?” The poem felt very modern, how it referenced so many different virtual spaces, all these posts on social media, and captured tens of disparate experiences all at once. What inspired you to capture that?

RMC: I love to scroll, and I don’t really feel bad about it either. Like, I’m really on that phone! 

As we entered the later stages of the pandemic, and because of the challenge of the earlier stages, a lot of the reciprocal energy was clapping back at things like Zoom, virtual events, and people started talking about how much they loathed them. I don’t think it was totally because they loathed them. I think a lot of it was because it reminded them of a challenging time. Of course, the interpersonal connection is different digitally—I’m not necessarily going to say worse or better—but I also spent a lot of time thinking about how essential digital community is for so many disabled people. 

Like I said earlier, I’m a really sleepy person. I take these anti-psychotics, and they have a huge sedative effect. I have trouble getting out of bed a lot of the time. I rarely work at my desk more than I’m working on the couch, like I am right now. And sometimes I still want to be at my friend’s event, but I’m about to pass out, and so I want to do it from bed. With “Hopescrolling,” I was trying to have a poem that was like, “You know what, the internet is good and digital connection is actually meaningful. And I know we don’t want to say that because we love being together in person, but let me just make a case for it.” And so I just started literally bookmarking tweets, Tiktoks, and Instagram posts that had takes on disability. You could see people in the comments, expressing their authentic feelings on disability without feeling like they were in a conversation about ableism or something. 

Interview

march 17/RUN

4.25 miles
locks and dam no.1 hill and back
50 degrees
wind: 13 mph/ 25 mph gusts

Warmer, windier. Ran straight into it heading south towards the falls. It didn’t howl or swirl the leaves but once it almost took off my hat. And it pushed against me, making it harder to run. I didn’t mind. At the start of the run, I felt a little stiff — especially my neck — but by the halfway point I had loosened up.

I noticed the river several times: Sometimes it was silver sparkle, other times tin or pewter, and it was ridged or scaled from the wind. I decided to run down the hill at the locks and dam no. 1 to get closer to the water. Inspired by AO’s Dart (see below), I wanted to hear the trails of scales and the bells just a level under listening. Did it sound like anything? If it did, the sounds were forgotten as I turned around and climbed the hill. A few steps in I stopped to take in the wide blue view of the river from this angle. It took up almost all of my sight: blue undulations

11 Things

  1. the long shadow of a slender tree cast across the part of the path that dips below the road
  2. an orange sweatshirt on a walker emerging from the winchell trail
  3. squaring my shoulders and running into a stiff wind
  4. 2 people under the ford bridge near the locks and dam no. 1, about to climb up somewhere
  5. the bright white base of the locks and dam no. 1 sign — they must use reflective paint
  6. the benches above the edge of the world and near folwell were empty
  7. the low hum of playing kids on the school playground
  8. the flat top of a recently made stump: orange
  9. a white patch in the river near the shore — was it a chunk of ice? a sandbar?
  10. a tailwind as I returned north — not feeling the wind but its absence and that everything was easier
  11. added a few hours later: a creaking above from one tree branch rubbing another in the wind

Listened to leaves shimmering in the trees as I ran south, my “Doin’ Time” playlist as I ran back north. Most memorable song, “Once in a Lifetime”:

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was

Water dissolving and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Under the water, carry the water
Remove the water from the bottom of the ocean
Water dissolving and water removing

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again, into the silent water
Under the rocks and stones, there is water underground

I never realized before how much water is used in this song. Very cool! The same as it ever was is an interesting contrast to what I was reading earlier this morning: Heraclitus and his idea of never stepping into the same river twice — see 17 march 2023

possible lines to recite/chant

Rereading my 17 march 2022 entry, I encountered these wonderful lines from Dart about how the river sounds:

will you swim down and attend to this foundry for
sounds

this jabber of pidgin-river
drilling these rhythmic cells and trails of scales,
will you translate for me blunt blink glint.

the way I talk in my many-headed turbulence
among these modulations, this nimbus of words kept in
motion
sing-calling something definitely human,

will somebody sing this riffle perfectly as the invisible
river
sings it

can you hear them at all,
muted and plucked,
muttering something that can only be expressed as
hitting a series of small bells just under the level of your
listening?

The bells!

High Above on the Ford Bridge Looking Down at the River

O, can you hear them
at all, these riffle-
perfect rhythmic cells
and trails of scales, plucked,
muted, muttering
below — a string of
small bells just under
the level of your
listening?

on moving — Alice Oswald and Cole Swensen

More words rediscovered while reading past entries in my “On This Day” practice:

I found this great quote from Oswald in her introduction to the poetry anthology, The Thunder Mutters: 101 Poems for the Planet:

Raking, like any outdoor work, is a more mobile, more many-sided way of knowing a place than looking. When you rake leaves for a couple of hours, you can hear right into the non-human world, it’s as if you and the trees had found a meeting point in the sound of the rake. (ix)

Mobile and many-sided, more than looking from a distance.

From Cole Swensen:

Then sitting still, we occupy a place; when moving through it, we displace place, putting it into motion and creating a symbiotic kinetic event in which place moves through us as well. 

Walk/ Cole Swensen

nov 28/RUN

3.1 miles
locks and dam no. 1
23 degrees / snow flurries

A 5k run with Scott in the snow! Flurries collecting on the edge of path and in the cracks of the asphalt. Flurries in the air making my already pixelated view — due to dead cone cells — even more pixelated. Strange, dreamy, disconnected. It was cold, but not too cold. I was overdressed: double gloves, double tights, a buff, a hood, a cap. Before the end of the first mile I was losing layers: 1 pair of gloves, then a hood.

We talked about last year’s marathon, and doing it again next year, and how it wasn’t as cold as we thought it would be. I mentioned that one of my favorite views is blocked because of too many branches. Scott liked how I described it, thick with thin branches.

10 Things

  1. brown leaves on the edge of the path, mixing with the snow
  2. a white-gray sky
  3. the flurries with big and clumpy, one flew in Scott’s throat and he freaked out a little
  4. the ravine below the double bridge was open and brown and bare
  5. a steady stream of cars, distanced from each other, flowing south on the river road
  6. all the benches were empty
  7. as we ran on edmund, a car behind us gently revved to alert us to their presence
  8. bright green leaves on a tree near the savanna
  9. a biker biking by in bright yellow shoes
  10. after the run, FWA driving us, we counted 6 wild turkeys crossing the road

That was hard to come up with 10 things today!

1

In January of 2024, I devoted a month to windows. This morning, on poets.org, I found this beautiful window poem, Wooden Window Frames / Luci Tapahonso. Here are the opening lines:

The morning sun streams through the little kitchen’s  
wooden panes; its luminescence tempts me to forego coffee.  
But I don’t. The dark coffee scent melds with the birds’ 
chirping along the hidden acacia. Then, a small bird 
alights on the cross of the wooden clothesline.  
Its tiny head turns from side to side, then as if sensing me,  
it gazes at me through a window square.  
We ponder each other, then remember our manners,  
and it flies off into the clean, cold air. 

2

My Faith Unfolds Itself/ Alafia Nicole Sessions

after Faith Ringgold’s exhibit, “Black is beautiful,” at the Picasso Museum, Paris, 2023

like a ribbonless plait:            
the rain outside descends in strands:
percussive opera for the sheltered:            

petrichor of hominy and green:
grief everywhere, all at once : and then
            the sun : reminds me I’m not new:

they are my dowry : the gone ones
            and their light : refracted through
the body’s fluids : o rivers : how to

            marry threads of water with faith:
predates language : but the word was
            the beginning : have we come this far by fate:

roots fracture, forget, then return : curse
            the pattern of rupture then mend : not unlike
the making of a quilt, or muscle : broth born

            of fire and water : fists full of ephemerals:
blood-honey : water always finds her way:
            I plump and soften : like soaked grain.

nov 22/RUN

5.5 miles
franklin hill turn around
34 degrees

Perfect running weather. Cold, but not too cold, calm, overcast. Clear paths, a dreamy, detached feeling. As I ran, I thought of a goal for this winter: continue working on running with a slower heart rate. I started this during the summer/fall with marathon training, and I think it helped me avoid injuries. This winter I’m thinking I should target 155-160. I wonder what fun experiments I can do while trying to keep my heart rate low?

10 Things

  1. as I ran, I gave attention to my arms — when my form was good, I felt like my arms were blades scissoring the air
  2. the river was half bronze, half pewter
  3. 2 walkers who were not together were both 
    wearing bright RED jackets
  4. 3 stones were stacked on the boulder — the one on top was barely balanced
  5. the yellow leaves were thick on the part of the path that descends into the tunnel of trees
  6. a roller skier bombing down the hill
  7. a noisy squirrel rooting through the dry brush
  8. the slabs of stone stacked under the franklin bridge always look like a person to me — they did again today, looking like a sitting person as I passed them on my way down, just stones on my way back up — I imagined someone playing a trick on me, first sitting there, but then after I passed, putting the stones down
  9. some regulars I haven’t named yet, but that I’ve encountered for years: 3 older white men, walking, stretched across the whole walking path — is it the same guys every time, or different ones, all of them man spreading? That’s what I could call them: the man spreaders
  10. rotting sewer smell in the tunnel of trees, close to where the city is doing some work

More work this morning (and afternoon), on my “And” poem. So far, I’ve written about the formation of the gorge (wanting to be somewhere else) and the designing of the Mississippi River Gorge park (to protect from overdevelopment and sell the gorge as a symbol of the water city). Now I’m getting into my love of the view, which is about what I see — softened, elemental forms, like tree line or water or white sand beach — but also what I feel — open, a veil lifted, a little clarity, freer and more able to breathe and move, to the other side (which stands in for many things, including St. Paul where my mom lived until she was 18, the place where people who died dwell, the normal-sighted and real world that I feel distanced from. I think the view is also about how standing above the gorge enables me to witness how it holds all of these things together, that it doesn’t divide but connects. There is not a gap between girl and world, but a space that can hold them together, along with water and stone, mothers and daughters, hear and there, now and then. These are all references to past sections of the poem.

nov 19/RUN

4 miles
minnehaha falls
49 degrees
wind gusts: 25 mph

Wet. Windy. Slick leaves. Squeaks. A light gray sky. Singing pines. The usual puddles. White foam falls. Gushing sewer pipes. Brisk air. Mud.

Greeted Santa Claus (the regular runner whose long white beard reminds me of Santa Claus). Passed a man walking with one leg up in a boot on a scooter. Gave directions to 2 walkers — which way to the falls? follow the path, it’s over there.

The creek was a steel blue and rushing to reach the limestone ledge. A kid at the main overlook was jumping in a puddle. The green gate at the top of the steps leading down to the falls was still open.

Wore shorts and a pink hooded jacket. My legs were only cold for a few minutes. Too warm for mid-November. Today is the last day of warmer air. Tomorrow, below freezing.

I started working on the section of Haunts poem that I’m titling, And. Came up with a few lines while running north. Recited them in my head until I stopped near the Folwell bench and spoke them into my phone:

Before a Victor-
ian’s great love for
ventilation, there
was water wanting
to be something and
somewhere else.

The ventilation bit is taken from an article about the origins of the Grand Rounds, and the Victorian is Horace W.S. Cleveland:

The concept of The Grand Rounds was born from Cleveland’s “preference of an extended system of boulevards, or ornamental avenues, rather than a series of detached open areas or public squares.” This was not only an aesthetic consideration: Cleveland had lost many possessions in the 1871 Chicago fire, and saw parkways as an effective firebreak in built-up urban areas. In addition, Cleveland stressed the
sanitary benefits derived from parkways. Cholera, typhus, and other diseases plagued cities in the late nineteenth century. Parkways could save land from unhealthy uses and, reflecting the Victorians’ great
love for ventilation, carry “winds . . . to the heart of the city, purified by their passage over a long stretch
of living water, and through the foliage of miles of forest.”

The History of the Grand Rounds


nov 4/RUN

5.75 miles
franklin loop
59 degrees / mist and drizzle

Wow, wow, wow! What a cool (vibe, not temp) morning beside the gorge. Everything damp and dripping, bright orange leaves, mist. I first noticed the mist in the floodplain forest, then on the river. Looking to the north while crossing the franklin bridge, the river disappeared into it. I greeted Daddy Long Legs — good morning! Saw a rowing shell on the river, gliding. From high above I couldn’t hear their awkward oars slapping the water. Noticed the reflections of trees in the water near the east shore.

10 Things

  1. drips of water tinkling from the trees — or was it wind moving through leaves?
  2. leaves + puddles = muck: yuck!
  3. the bright white boat glowing on the dark river
  4. a broken slat on a freshly painted fence
  5. a group of glowing orange trees near the base of the bridge
  6. walkers with raincoats, their hoods up
  7. no stones stacked on the big boulder
  8. a dirt trail leading down near meeker dam, just past a wrought-iron fence
  9. a sandbar just below the surface, under the lake street bridge overlook
  10. white sands beach, glowing through the bare trees on the other side of the river

As I ran, I was thinking about water and stone and how I feel like both. Water, flowing and carving out new possibilities, and stone, slowly being worn down, transformed, losing layers. I also thought about air and its relationship to water and stone. Octavio Paz has a wonderful poem, Wind, Water, Stone. I also kept returning to the idea of erosion.

Reading through past entries tagged with “water and stone,” I found this bit from march 13, 2024. Some of the same thoughts I was having this morning! Such loops and repeated cycles of thoughts!

restless water satisfied stone erosion movement 

not 1 or 2 but 3 things: water and stone and their interactions
erosion, making something new — gorge

Then: Water as a poet / stubborn Stone yields, refuses, resists
water = poet / stone = words/language
erosion = absence, silence, making Nothing
me = eroding eyes / stone being shaped / a form of water shaping stone

I wear down the stone with my regular loops

Add a variation of this line, originally in my mood ring, Relentless, somewhere:

I am both limestone and water. As I dissolve my slow steady flow carves out a new geography.

In other rock-related news, FWA is planning to play the epically awesome bass clarinet Concerto for a Aria competition this spring. It’s called Prometheus and the four short-ish movements are based on Kafka’s short story about the myth:

There are four legends concerning Prometheus:

According to the first, he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was perpetually renewed. According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it. According to the third, his treachery was forgotten in the course of thousands of years, the gods forgotten, the eagles, he himself forgotten. According to the fourth, every one grew weary of the meaningless affair. The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily. There remained the inexplicable mass of rock.—The legend tried to explain the inexplicable. As it came out of a substratum of truth it had in turn to end in the inexplicable.

Prometheus / Franz Kafka

What to make of that inexplicable rock?!

oct 31/RUN

3.5 miles
trestle turn around
38 degrees / drips then drizzle then freezing rain

Happy Halloween. Snow later this morning. Wanted to get in a quick run before that happened. When I started it was only dripping but as I finished, freezing rain. Wore black running tights, a pink hooded jacket, a black winter vest, and black gloves. Running north I had the wind in my face. Running south, to my side. I enjoyed this run. Hardly anyone else out on the trail and cool temperatures. Winter running is coming!

Since I’m trying to finish an audio book that’s due in 2 days, I listened to it instead of the rain — except for in the last minutes of the run. I took out my headphones and heard water falling steadily.

10 Things

  1. the usual puddles on neighborhood sidewalks: just past the alley, a stretch on the next block, a big one covering entire slab on 46th
  2. bright headlights cutting through the trees on the other side of the ravine
  3. a few stones stacked on the big boulder
  4. under the lake street bridge: a red blanket stretched on the uneven limestone with a person under it, an empty wheelchair nearby
  5. a small stretch of the river road between lake street and the trestle was flooded. It almost was cresting the curb
  6. most cars slowed down for the flooding, but one didn’t — splash! — thankfully not on me
  7. only one other runner out there
  8. roaring wind
  9. light gray sky
  10. a steady, strong rhythm of striking feet

That wheelchair broke me open for the rest of the run.

Yesterday, Scott, RJP, and I voted early! Everyone at the polling place was happy and nice and excited to be voting. A great experience, even as it was difficult because of my failing vision. Before voting, we were required to fill out an absentee ballot form. Only the highlighted parts, the person who handed us the form instructed. The problem: I can’t see yellow, and that was the color of the highlighted text. RJP had to point out the sections. Scott was unsettled as he was reminded of how bad my vision is getting. At first, when I looked at the ballot, I couldn’t quite make sense of it, but after a moment, slowly, I could read the different categories and names. I thought I was filling in the entire bubble (Harris/Walz, OF COURSE!), but when I double- then triple-checked it, I had only filled in half of it. Another few times, and I finally filled it all in.

water section of haunts

Wrote this bit about the hidden cut-off wall in downtown Minneapolis that was put in place in 1876 and still holds the river back from breaking through the last bed of limestone:

A century and
a half later, the
concrete, hidden deep*,
still stands and the river,
ever restless*, has
not stopped trying to
move past it. Water
will flow where water
wants to go, under
over through. Near the
gorge the girl beholds
its quiet refusal
to be contained.

*should I cut these extra bits?

I thought about the idea of water going where it wants to go as I ran through the rain, navigating the streams and puddles.

oct 29/RUN

3.1 miles
locks and dam no. 1 and back
61 degrees / humidity: 80%

High today of 78. Tomorrow 72. Halloween 49. As Scott says, It’s always cold on Halloween. I felt overheated during the run. Face burning and dripping sweat. I had been planning to do a 10k — the Hidden Falls loop — but it felt too warm. Maybe on Thursday. I wore black shorts and a darkish blue short-sleeved shirt. The same thing I wore for the marathon.

I listened to an audio book, The God of the Woods, so I was distracted as I ran. Can I remember 10 things?

10 Things

  1. an intense, sweet and sour and woody smell as I ran by a pile of wood chips at the edge of the trail
  2. tall piles of wet leaves at the end of the street, waiting for the city workers to return and scoop them up in their truck
  3. beep beep beep — a city truck backing up
  4. 3 or 4 stacked stones on the ancient boulder
  5. a group of bikers, all wearing bright yellow long-sleeved shirts
  6. crunch crunch crunch — my feet running through a blanket of leaves on one side of the trail
  7. a faint shadow on the sidewalk, cast from the light of a weak, cloud-covered sun
  8. someone sitting on a bench near the overlook, wearing dark clothing
  9. the water fountain near 36th appears to still be on — the st. paul ones are already turned off, when do they turn off the minneapolis ones?
  10. the clicking and clacking of a roller skier’s poles and the bright blue of their shirt — did I see this today or on my walk yesterday afternoon?

more on the water section of haunts

I’m still gathering ideas and resources for my water section. Here’s another one:

Though the river has always been dynamic, it looks very different than it did just a few centuries ago. In the past 175 years, people began making major engineering changes to the river in attempts to harness it for industry. Before we started building mills, dams and locks, the Mississippi here was a wild and free-flowing river.

Rather than the series of dammed reservoirs we have today, the river was a braided channel with at least a dozen islands between the falls and Bdóte, where the Minnesota River enters the Mississippi. The river had rocky rapids, gravel bars and beaches, fast and slow spots, deep and shallow spots and floodplains.

Meet our twin cities locks and dams

Possibly to put beside this, a line from a poem I revisited this morning:

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am
(from Let this darkness be a bell tower/ Rainer Maria Rilke)