3.3 miles
mississippi river road path, north/south
2 degrees/feels like -8
100% snow-covered
Snow again. All set to go, heading out the door, looked down at the sidewalk and it was white. What? Looked up at the sky: falling snow. Wasn’t expecting that. Oh well, went out for a run anyway, wondering what the people in the cars driving by were thinking about me running and slipping on the icy sidewalks, scaling tall, misshapen mounds of snow created by the snow plow. Listened to my playlist today, which was a nice distraction from the wet, sharp shards of snow hitting my face and settling on my eyelashes. Didn’t feel much wind, but the light snow was always in my face, coating the slightly unzipped part of my jacket and the tops of my gloves. Greeted the Daily Walker and a few other runners. Encountered at least 2 fat tires. Quickly glanced at the river. All I could see was grayish white, whiteish gray. Devoted a lot of attention to watching the path and avoiding big ice chunks or slick spots. Wanted to think about the cold today and how it feels but it was hard because I didn’t really feel that cold. Maybe because of all of the layers?
layers: green shirt, orange shirt, black jacket, gray jacket, 2 pairs of running tight, extra long light weight fish scale socks, shorter heavier dog paw socks, a buff, a hood, a visor, gloves, mittens, headphones
I don’t remember breathing in the cold deeply. And it wasn’t cold enough for the snot to freeze in my nose. My face burned a bit but my fingers were fine. So were my toes. I guess the thing I remember most about the cold is how it lingers. Taking off my running layers when I got home, my torso was very cold, so were my legs. Now, an hour later, I still feel cold.
Listening to a poem about winter by Mark Strand (Lines for Winter), I wrote a few phrases in my journal that I liked:
“gray falls from the air” “the dome of dark” “the tune your bones play” What tune do my bones play?
Yesterday I mentioned the rhythms I started chanting at the end of my run: 1 2 3/45 or 54/321. I wrote them in my journal and translated them into meter: 1 2 3/45 becomes an anapest/troche or unstressed unstressed stressed/stressed unstressed. This afternoon, as I look out my upstairs window–the half of it that isn’t yet blocked by packed snow on the porch roof–at the snow, I’ll try adding words to the beats.
My poem for today is a wonderful Ars Poetica (a poem about the art of poetry):
To the New Journal
Susan Rich
after W. S. Merwin
Let’s just listen—
before the spent words and the hidden nests
of sentences begin, before the musical count
of vowels and consonants, the ink
not yet slippery with wild grief
or souped-up grandeur.
I wish to arrange you—
with a few half-formed couplets—
inquiries without answers.
But what can we do? These mountains are still
young and rising, I write. Yet,
even the fields call to an orchestra of stars.
Even the birds sing to-do lists.
Even the birds sing to-do lists. Love this line.