Tag: windows

dec 14/BIKERUN

bike: 18 minutes
bike stand, basement
run: 5k
treadmill, basement

Because I’m feeling extra sore at the end of the year and because it’s icy and cold (feels like 5) outside, I biked and ran in the basement this morning. While I biked, I watched more of Netflix’s Prom. Still not sure if I like it, but it’s good to watch while biking. A nice distraction. Near the end of my biking, I stopped the movie, pulled out my phone, and recorded myself reciting an excerpt of “Halos.” Several mistakes, but not too bad. I love this poem with its myopic me and soul ubiquitous like water and the idea that “to the dead, we’re the ghosts.”

Reciting Halos/ Biking, heart rate 120 bpm

While running I listened to a spotify playlist that included some Harry Styles, Janelle Monae, Demi Lovato, and ended with Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the U.S.A.” Wow, that last song. Not too bad to run to, with its slow steady beat, but those lyrics. Yikes. That was a particularly bad phase for Cyrus–so much troubling cultural appropriation. Wore my new berry red shoes and felt fast and free–even though my app claimed I was running slow. Pretty sure that my speed on the treadmill is always faster than it says. I ran for a little over 30 minutes–that’s a lot for me on the treadmill.

Today the electoral college votes. Foolishly I had assumed that that would be it, all of the doubt and unsubstantiated claims about the election will end. But then I reviewed how all of this works and realized that we still have the potential shit show of January 6th, when Congress can chose to debate the results. Of course, it couldn’t be resolved in 2020–2020 must continue to (mostly) suck.

Here’s a poem I’ve been meaning to post for some time now; I wanted to wait until it was winter, or at least felt like winter: cold, with snow on the ground. It’s from December 1972.

In Wiry Winter/ James Schuyler

The shadow of a bird
upon the yard upun
a house: it’s gone.
Through a pane a
beam like a warm hand
laid upon an arm.
A thin shell, trans-
parent, blue: the
atmosphere in which
to swim. Burr. A
cold plunge. The bird
is back. All the same,
to swim, plunging
upward, arms as wings,
into calm cold. Warm
within the act,
threading air, a
shadow on the yard.
Or floating, gliding,
a shadow on the roofs
and drives, in action
warm, the shadow cold
but brief. To swim
in air. No, Not in
this wiry winter air.
A beam comes in the
glass, a hand to
warm an arm. A hand
upon the glass
finds it a kind
of ice. The Shadow
of a bird less cold.
Window, miraculous
contrivance, sun
hot wires in
meshed cold.
The bird goes
quick as a wish
to swim up
and cast, like
it, a shadow
on the years.

dec 11/BIKERUN

bike: 25 minutes
bike stand, basement
run: 1.9 miles
treadmill, basement

Not too cold or too covered in snow outside today, but I decided to stay inside to cross train and try out my new shoes on the treadmill. Can’t remember what I watched while I biked–some running race, I think. After about 20 minutes on the bike, when my heart rate was at 120 bpm, I recorded myself reciting the two poems I reviewed this morning: Emily Dickinson’s “Before I Got My Eye Put Out” and Vincente Huidobro’s “Natural Forces.”

Dickinson and Huidobro/ 11 December

I love fun challenges like this–trying to remember and recite a poem while working out. I did a good job. I like the juxtaposition of these two poems, with Dickinson cautioning against the hubris of “owning” objects–Mountains, Meadows, Dipping Birds, Amber Roads– by seeing them, and Huidobro celebrating the power of his glances to hold back a landscape or relight the stars or hold down a plummeting train. I memorized both of these poems as part of my Loving Eye/Arrogant Eye theme this summer. I like thinking about it in relation to Kelly’s scouring eye “that scrubs clean the sky and blossomed tree” in “Perhaps You Tire of Birds.” What if vision’s power was not in its penetrating gaze, but something else? I used this question as the start of my “Awed” mood ring poem:

Behold the power of sight! Not found in one destructive glance but in the accumulation of looks. Against the odds and in spite of damaged cones misfiring signals and incomplete data these looks produce something resembling vision — an image feeling fuzzy form.

It’s cool to think about how the poems I memorized and recited this summer helped to inspire my work this fall.

After I finished reciting the poems, I hopped off the bike and ran almost 2 miles on the treadmill. Listened to my Bday 2018 playlist while I tried out my new shoes. Very nice! I wonder if I will run faster outside in these? Felt good to move and sweat and not think about much.

This morning I made it outside for a walk with Delia the dog. Cooler and windy, but clear, uncrowded, and seeming like October and not December. No snow or ice, just lots of brown leaves, bare branches, and yellowing grass. Passing a house on the corner of a street a few blocks away, I noticed the curtain slightly open and the face of an eager dog–a small poodle or Bichon?–watching us walk by. I had noticed the open curtain the day before and thought there might be a dog or cat in the window, but couldn’t look long enough to see. It takes a lot more time (than it used to, and than “normally” sighted people) to be able to determine what I’m looking at. Often I don’t bother; I dislike stopping and staring. It seems rude. One day I will get over this and take as much time as I want stopping to look at things until they make sense. I’m working on it!

From a twitter thread about poems that changed your life, I found this great one by Rumi. I’ve hardly read any Rumi, although I know Mary Oliver (one of my favorites), read them every day.

The Guest House/ Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing and
invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

nov 30/RUN

3.15 miles
turkey hollow
20 degrees/feels like 13

Much colder today, which is fine with me. I’m ready for some proper winter running.

layers I started with: hood, black cap, ear bands (a headband to cover my ears), pink jacket, black vest, green shirt, 2 pairs of running tights, 2 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of gloves, a buff

layers I shed: hood, 1 pair of gloves

I encountered a few runners and walkers but we were all able to keep our distance. No fat tires or roller skiers. Heard the kids on the playground at Minnehaha Academy. Minnesota kids learn early how to handle the cold. Didn’t see any turkeys in turkey hollow. Don’t remember hearing any leaf blowers or chainsaws.

Listened to a playlist, mainly because I was trying to get a Christmas song out of my head that I heard when I turned on the radio this morning–the really dark new year’s eve one about when a famous singer returns to his home town encounters his first love at a grocery store and pity drinks a 6 pack with her in the car. Of course, now I have the song in my head again.

Delight of the Day

The river! Running south on the river road, suddenly I noticed it through the tall, slender tree trunks: bright, sparkling white. Or was it glowing or shimmering or flickering like the flame from a fire? Not just one spot, but the whole river. Wow. The brightness of it all didn’t bother me, even though light sensitivity is one of the symptoms of cone dystrophy. I’m not sure it completely fits, but the light on the river this morning reminded me of Danez Smith’s description of a frozen Minnesota lake in “I’m Going back to Minnesota Where Sadness Makes Sense”:

Have you ever stood on a frozen lake, California?
The sun above you, the snow & stalled sea—a field of mirror

all demanding to be the sun too, everything around you
is light & it’s gorgeous & if you stay too long it will kill you

& it’s so sad, you know? You’re the only warm thing for miles
& the only thing that can’t shine.

Would I call the sun this morning a mirror? I’m not sure but I love their description of the lake and everything but us being light and able to shine.

Other words for sparkle: gleam, glow, glint, glitter, glisten

Scrolling through my Safari reading list, looking for something else, I found this poem and cold mornings:

Cold Morning/ Eamon Grennan

Through an accidental crack in the curtain
I can see the eight o’clock light change from
charcoal to a faint gassy blue, inventing things

in the morning that has a thick skin of ice on it
as the water tank has, so nothing flows, all is bone,
telling its tale of how hard the night had to be

for any heart caught out in it, just flesh and blood
no match for the mindless chill that’s settled in,
a great stone bird, its wings stretched stiff

from the tip of Letter Hill to the cobbled bay, its gaze
glacial, its hook-and-scrabble claws fast clamped
on every window, its petrifying breath a cage

in which all the warmth we were is shivering.

Love the description of the morning light as gassy blue and the metaphor of the mindless chill as a great stone bird with the glacial gaze and breath that cages our warmth and leaves us shivering.

oct 27/RUN

3.2 miles
turkey hollow
17 degrees/ feels like 10

Coldest day of the season. Double tights + green shirt + orange sweatshirt + vest + buff + stocking cap. Sunny. I must have glanced at the river but I don’t remember what it looked like. Too busy trying to avoid other runners and walkers. A wonderful morning. I like (love?) this cold. Clears out the sinuses and keeps me from getting overheated. Running on Edmund, heading back home, I saw my shadow. It was nice to run with her. Thought about another mood ring poem: doubt. Had some ideas as I moved–something about how the doubt is related to the awe and the brain’s remarkable ability to enable me to keep seeing. It’s a relief but when I can still see I question whether my vision is really that bad. I doubt myself. I want to think more about doubt and what it means today. Here’s a poem to get me started.

My Doubt/ Jane Hirshfield – 1953-

I wake, doubt, beside you,
like a curtain half-open.

I dress doubting,
like a cup
undecided if it has been dropped.

I eat doubting,
work doubting,
go out to a dubious cafe with skeptical friends.

I go to sleep doubting myself,
as a herd of goats
sleep in a suddenly gone-quiet truck.

I dream you, doubt,
nightly—
for what is the meaning of dreaming
if not that all we are while inside it
is transient, amorphous, in question?

Left hand and right hand,
doubt, you are in me,
throwing a basketball, guiding my knife and my fork.
Left knee and right knee,
we run for a bus,
for a meeting that surely will end before we arrive.

I would like
to grow content in you, doubt,
as a double-hung window
settles obedient into its hidden pulleys and ropes.

I doubt I can do so:
your own counterweight governs my nights and my days.

As the knob of hung lead holds steady
the open mouth of a window,
you hold me,
my kneeling before you resistant, stubborn,
offering these furious praises
I can’t help but doubt you will ever be able to hear.

oct 16/RUN

3 miles
turkey hollow
36 degrees

Sitting in my office in the front room this morning, working on my mood ring poems, I looked out the window and thought I saw a flurry. Not possible. Must have been a small leaf. About 10 minutes later I looked out the window again. Snowing. Big fluffy flurried flakes. I don’t mind. Went out for a run about 20 minutes later. Wonderfully uncrowded. If it clears the paths and keeps more people inside, bring on the bad weather! I can handle the wind and snow and ice and cold much better than having to constantly weave around to avoid people. And I want to run above the river, to admire the gorge and the other side–the St. Paul side.

Today the gorge was beautiful. I need a better word than beautiful. Too generic and frequently used. What do I mean by beautiful? Alluring? Calming? Handsome, dazzling, delightful, fine, resplendent? The word beautiful is not the problem. The problem is my lack of specificity. Why was it beautiful? I think it was beautiful today because there was a clear, open view with pleasing, recognizable, calming forms: tall, almost leafless brown trunks with a few slashes of red or yellow; blue-gray water winding like a serpent towards the falls; a mass of fuzzy treetops, greenish-orangish-reddish-yellow, across the way on the other bank. Looking up definitions of beautiful in the online OED, there was frequent mentioning of perfection. I didn’t find the gorge or the forms I saw to be perfect. Maybe they were splendid or gorgeous instead?

While looking up synonyms for beautiful I found pulchritudinous (beautiful, attractive) which seems to me to be a rather ugly word for describing something beautiful. Is there a term for a word that sounds the opposite of what it’s intending to convey? The opposite of onomatopoeia? Somebody asked this exact question on reddit 3 years ago and received one somewhat helpful, somewhat overly jargon-y response which you can read for yourself if you’d like.

I want to continue to push myself to express why the open view of the gorge moves (pleases, satisfies, amazes, delights) me so much. Maybe this expression won’t come in specific words but in images and feelings? A project for late fall and early winter?

Speaking of words, I’ve been meaning to post this from the New Yorker’s Shouts and Murmurs’ “Lexicon for a Pandemic”:

Someday, Noneday, Whoseday?, Whensday?, Blursday, Whyday?, Doesn’tmatterday: Days of the week

Today’s October Surprise

Like most of the October Surprise’s, this one happened yesterday afternoon. Scott, RJP and I took Delia the dog to Lake Minnewashta Regional Park. Wow! So much open space and views of waving water and wide wooded trails and grassy knolls with picnic shelters and steep wooden stairs winding down to leaf-covered trails closer to the water. What a delightful surprise to find this space perfect for solitude and breathing and being! There’s one image that I will try to return to when I need to calm down and feel more hopeful: Walking down the steep wooden stairs, each step offering a leafless view of the blue lake stretching wide. Behind: a hidden field with only a few trees and benches and a small picnic shelter and some still green grass for company. Above: blue sky. Below: a leaf-covered trail, lined with trees, some still bearing yellowing leaves.

Scott took many pictures, but not any of my favorite spot.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGYR6ovH0th/

But RJP did! This is the view from halfway down the stairs.

sept 3/RUN

2.3 miles
experimenting with loops*
62 degrees
wind: 14 mph/24 mph gusts

*36th st, east/edmund, north/2 loops (33rd st, east/river road, north/32nd ave, west/47th ave, south/33rd st, east)/ edmund, south/36th st, west

Running Route, 3 Sept

This summer I had planned to run loops but couldn’t motive myself to do them. Now, without any planning or expectations, I have started running loops. It’s funny how that works. Will I continue? Who knows. I enjoyed adding more distance to the loops I started yesterday–doubling them, from .25 to .5 miles. I liked running this route because it wasn’t crowded and the loop had variety: a flat stretch closer to the river, a short hill beside the aspen eyes, another flat stretch through the neighborhood, and then down the hill.

Wasn’t bothered by the wind this morning even though it was gusting. I used to struggle with it so much. Lots of entries from my first year of writing on this log in which I complain about all of the wind. Encountered a group of roller skiers, a few other runners, some cars. Noticed acorns flying off the trees as the wind picked up. Glad one didn’t hit me. Fall is almost here. School starts next Tuesday. Low temperatures in the 40s next week. Where are the geese? Haven’t heard/seen any more vees in the sky.

a conspiracy of ravens

Wind in the Grass/ Mark Van Doren

Are you so weary? Come to the window;
Lean, and look at this—
Something swift runs under the grass
With a little hiss…

Now you see it ripping off,
Reckless, under the fence.
Are you so tired? Unfasten your mind,
And follow it hence

I love sweet little rhyming poems about the wind. Here is another poem that I posted in March of this year:

Who Has Seen the Wind?/ CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

Who has seen the wind? 
Neither I nor you: 
But when the leaves hang trembling, 
The wind is passing through. 

Who has seen the wind? 
Neither you nor I: 
But when the trees bow down their heads, 
The wind is passing by.

And, of course, some of my favorite lines from Richard Siken:

I am the wind and the wind is invisible, all the leaves tremble but I am invisible…

august 13/RUN

3 miles
43rd ave, north/32nd st, east/river road trail, south/edmund, north
72 degrees
humidity: 87%
dew point: 69

Warmer today. Started slow and got faster each mile. Ran north on 43rd again, noticing more of the familiar houses. I run on the right side so I miss running by one of my other favorite 43rd avenue houses on the left side: the one with the 2 lion statues guarding their stoop, at the edge of the sidewalk. For every season, they wear different visors. Since the pandemic began, they’ve been wearing masks–or at least they have the last time I checked, which was a month ago. In the spring, they wear bunny ears, in July, spangled stars, at Christmas-time, reindeer antlers. I know they do something for Halloween too, but I can’t remember what.

Ran past the field at Cooper school, the Aspen eyes, the parking lot at Minnehaha Academy, filling up with cars. Decided to try running on the trail through the tunnel of trees again. No problem! Forget to check out the amphitheater of green air, but did notice the construction trailer–where they’re doing the sewer work–and how, on this side, it was heavily tagged with graffiti. I was moving too fast to read what it said, but it looked cool with the big, brightly colored block letters. Heard the voices of 2 women behind me somewhere. So loud! Was it the two runners I passed–and managed to get 6 feet of distance from because I ran up the side of a small hill–right before entering the tunnel of trees? Ran through the welcoming oaks and above the ravine. Wondered why I wasn’t hearing any water gushing through the pipe, over the limestone ledge, down to the river after all of the rain yesterday. Stayed on the trail until 42nd st when I turned around but was too busy looking out for other people to notice the river. It is often difficult for me to see when a person is ahead–most of the time I can, but I have to be extra careful for those times when I can’t. Haven’t run into anyone yet!

Tried reciting the poem I started memorizing this morning: “Babel” by Kimberly Johnson. I thought I had it memorized, but I got hopelessly stuck halfway through. I thought about briefly stopping and looking up the words on my phone but didn’t.

My God, it’s loud down there, so loud the air
is rattled. Who with the hissing of trees,
the insect chatter, can fix devotion

on holy things, the electrical bugs
so loud the air is stunned, windy the leaves’
applause redoubled by the clapping wings

of magpies? Who with their whispered psalm
can outvoice their huckster cackle, their huckster cackle, their huckster cackle!?

Stuck. I knew the next line had something to do with trees but no matter how hard I concentrated, patiently waiting for the words to appear, they didn’t. When I got home, I checked and, of course!, the line is:

can outvoice their huckster cackle, the trees
blustered to howls while the tesla bees

whined loudly to the shocked air?

Yes! How could I have forgotten those howls or the tesla bees? Are tesla bees a thing? I looked it up and aside from a mention of Nikola Tesla’s idea that women would soon rule the world as “Queen Bees” and references to the “tesla of honey” on a beekeeping forum, I couldn’t find anything. I asked Scott and he wondered if it could be a reference to the buzzing sound a Tesla coil makes. When I looked up, “Tesla coil sound” I found an article about a band that gets the Tesla coil to “sing”. Wow.

Here’s the full poem:

Babel/ Kimberly Johnson

My God, it’s loud down here, so loud the air
is rattled. Who with the hissing of trees,
the insect chatter, can fix devotion

on holy things, the electrical bugs
so loud the air is stunned, windy the leaves’
applause redoubled by the clapping wings

of magpies? Who with their whispered psalm
can outvoice their huckster cackle, the trees
blustered to howls while the tesla bees

whine loudly to the shocked air? O who
can think of heaven in such squall, shrill wind
of trees, magpie wings, and throats in fracas,

the bluebottle static, the air stupid
with the shrieks of devils,— of angels,—
who in such squall can think of anything

but heaven?

I love this poem and all it’s chatter. I was thinking about it this morning as I drank my coffee, sitting in the chair I always sit in while drinking my coffee with all the windows open, listening to all the birds and the low insistent hum of the crickets. So much noise!

august 10/RUN

3.1 miles
43rd ave, north/32nd st, east/edmund, south/33rd st, east/river road trail, south/42nd st, west/edmund, north
67 degrees
humidity: 80%

Non-stop thunder and lightening for most of the night. Wild. Unsettling to the dog, but no damage or power outages. This morning everything was wet and a darker (but not an ominous dark) green.

Ran north on 43rd until 32nd then turned right. I think this is my new usual route. Ran on 32nd to edmund, right before the river, and ran a block until crossing at 33rd to enter the trail. I decided today I would try to run the tunnel of trees and hope there weren’t too many people when I reached the narrowest parts. Success! Didn’t encounter anyone.

Ran past the old stone steps, past the concrete wall/ overlook/ bench that Delia likes to jump on, past the four barriers (2 walls, 2 fences), past the amphitheater of green air (the spot where the trees open up slightly to create wide space surrounded by trees, blocking out the sky but still feeling uncrowded), past the spot on the trail where you can just see the top of the hill. Beautiful! I had forgotten how much I love this stretch of the trail. Above the forest, on the edge of a ridge, looking out at endless layers of green with no floor and no sky. Tucked below the road, hidden behind a wall and a fence. Dark and mysterious. Quiet. Enough time alone to gain some peace, not enough to feel afraid (of critters* or lurking humans).

*Speaking of critters, I have seen, earlier this year in March, a coyote run down into the tunnel of trees. I was not running, but walking and was across the road. And yesterday, a jogger reported seeing a black bear near the Summit Monument overlooking the river on the east side close to the trail that’s part of one of my frequent (in non-COVID times) routes: the Ford loop! One more, less scary one: at least twice, while walking around the neighborhood, Scott and I saw an albino squirrel.

After the tunnel of trees, I ran through the welcoming oaks and above the ravine. I was surprised to not hear any water rushing out of the sewer pipe. Ran past the oak savanna–too many leaves to see anything, past the steps at 38th street, past the bench on the dirt path that links two steep hills each winding back down to the Winchell trail. Encountered some bikers who didn’t even try to move over for me and when I moved off the edge of the path to give them room, they biked even closer. Did this happen, or did it seem like it did because of my bad vision and lack of depth perception? People always seem too close to me with my messed up macular.

As I ran, I tried to recite “Push the button, hear the sound” again. I made it through several lines, but became distracted as I tried to avoid other people. It’s hard to recite poems and get lost in the words when you’re having to look out for other runners. Thinking about the poem and it’s refrain, Listen and can you hear?, I thought about what I’d like others to listen to by the river and what I wonder if they can hear:

Listen to the gravel crunching on the trail.
Can you hear the electric buzz of the cicadas, relentless and rumbling under everything?
Can you hear the rowers on the river?
Listen to the roller skier’s ski poles striking the ground.
Can you hear the poles clickity-clack or do they just clack, or only click?
Listen to the doppler effect on the bike’s speakers.
Can you hear the talk radio host yelling through someone’s phone?
Listen to the pileated woodpecker laughing at us.
Can you hear that circle of light on the surface of river inviting you in?
Can you hear your shadow running beside you?
Listen to the oaks exhaling.
Can you hear your lost innocence?
Can you still hear your mom’s voice? Her laugh? The way she said your name?
Can you hear the asphalt buckling?
Listen to “Black Wizard Wave” by Nur-d.

Earlier this morning, before heading out for my run, I came across–and not for the first time–Walt Whitman’s wonderful “Song of the Open Road”:

from Song of the Open Road/ Walt Whitman

3
You air that serves me with breath to speak! 
You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape! 
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers! 
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides! 
I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me. 

You flagg’d walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges! 
You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships! 

You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs! 
You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards! 
You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much! 
You doors and ascending steps! you arches! 
You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings! 
From all that has touch’d you I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me, 
From the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me. 

5
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines, 
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, 
Listening to others, considering well what they say, 
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, 
Gently,but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. 
I inhale great draughts of space, 
The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine. 

I am larger, better than I thought, 
I did not know I held so much goodness. 


july 27/RUN

3.2 miles
ford bridge and back
66 degrees
humidity: 80%

Sunny and cooler this morning, although it still felt warm. Lots of sweating. Ran south on the river road and thought about how they will be opening up the road to cars next week. Will the paths be much more crowded, or will many of the people who came to walk on the road stop coming altogether?

Overheard by one biker to another: “…they are told to just not give a shit.” Who are they? Who told them to not give a shit, about what, and why?

Also overheard: some music coming out of a bike speaker, talk radio out of phone speakers. Couldn’t hear it well enough to recognize any of it.

No roller skiers this morning, only bikers, walkers, runners. Don’t remember hearing any birds–how is that possible? No laughing or crying or yelling kids. No rowers. No river. No trail, only road.

Saw my shadow running beside me.

They have started clearing off the gravel they had put down on the roads to cover the tar they also put down to seal some cracks. To get rid of it, a truck drives through slowly, sweeping and spraying water. Last night on our evening walk, Scott and I witnessed a roller skier attempting to ski on the gravelly road. So awkward and difficult looking! The skier was wearing pajama pants and despite my efforts to not judge him, I did–they looked like flannel pants and it was still 80 degrees outside.

Writing this, I am sitting in the front room, looking out the window at some birds–are they robins?–who are digging up something in the grass near the part of the lawn that we have begrudgingly ceded to the ants. There are 4 of them (at least) and I can’t tell if they’re friends or enemies. Frenemies?…A few minutes later, two squirrels chasing each other…and a few minutes after that, a scuffle on the tree–annoying little squirrel claws clicking and clacking on the dry bark.

Speaking of squirrels, I was just wondering about poems featuring them–are there many and are they odes or love poems or what? I can’t ever imagine writing a love poem about a squirrel. I don’t like squirrels. As I was thinking about all of this, I suddenly remembered a poem I memorized earlier this summer that features some judge-y squirrels: What Would Root.

The poem begins:

Walking through a cathedral of oak trees
and bristlecone pines, scolded by squirrels
in priestly black, their white collars
wagging with the force of their scolding…

then later:

The squirrels,
I mentioned them already, etc, and lizards
ran down the spines of rocks like a bad feeling.

and even later:

Oh yes, I drank water from the ground; I
was wild, even then, though the squirrels scolded
me and tried to convince me I was not.

So much scolding! Doing a little more thinking, I remembered another poem I love that features squirrels–even better, squirrels being punished for their bad behavior! Forsythe Avenue by Aimee Nezhukumathil.

Tulip bulbs that a girl once planted and sprinkled with
pepper flakes have all been scratched up by brave squirrels
who strut the streets with tiny blistered mouths.

july 20/RUN

3.1 miles
big loop*
68 degrees

*44th ave, north/32nd st, east/river road, south/42nd st, west/edmund, south

Another good run. Cooler and very calm, still, quiet. Don’t remember hearing (m)any birds, no conversations, no rowers. At least 3 separate times, I thought I was hearing the clickity-clack of roller skiers, but was actually hearing a bike with noisy wheels or messed up gears or something. Strange that it happened 3 times when I don’t remember ever making that mistake before. Was it the quality of air? Hardly any wind this morning. Sunny, but not bright. Did I see my shadow? Can’t remember.

Recited “The Gate” one more day and thought about gates and openings and doorways and thresholds and windows and spaces where movement and breathing and new stories/ways of being are possible. I think this is my new theme for the month and/or for a series of poems/essays.

Recorded myself reciting it just after finishing my run–my heart rate was probably around 140 or so as I spoke. I got it mostly right but messed up the second to last “this.” The order she writes the three thises–“This is what you’ve been waiting for, ” “And he’d say, This,” and “This, he’d say” is important. It doesn’t have as much impact the way I recited it.

The Gate, July 20

Yesterday, reading Ted Kooser’s Delights and Shadows, I found these two poems that I really liked:

Grasshopper/ Ted Kooser

This year they are exactly the size
of the the pencil stub my grandfather kept
to mark off the days since rain,

and precisely the color of dust, of the roads
leading back accross the dying fields
into the ’30s. Walking the cracked lane

past the empty barn, the empty silo,
you hear them tinkering with irony,
slapping the grass like drops of rain.

The Early Bird/ Ted Kooser

Still dark, and raining hard
on a cold May morning

and yet the early bird
is out there chirping

chirping its sweet-sour
wooden-bully notes,

pleased, it would seem,
to be given work,

hauling the heavy
bucket of dawn

up from the darkness,
note over note,

and letting us drink.