4.2 miles
to the falls and back
17 degrees/ feels like 5
25% ice and snow covered
Reached the river and turned right instead of left and headed to the falls. Today the river was blue. Grayish blue. Steel blue. Maybe Copenhagen blue? I can’t trust my color sense these days. Sometimes bright pink looks yellow or green looks gold. Regardless of what color you would call it, I’ll stick with steel blue. Beautiful. A few less ice floes down here, south of the lake street bridge. The path was stained a chalky white, the hard frozen snow brown. Sometimes it was difficult to see what was clear and what was not.
The falls were wonderful. Reaching the far end of the park, by the benches and fountain with Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha” etched on them, I heard the dim roar of the falls still flowing. Rounding the corner, the roar suddenly became louder. I stopped at the stone edge for a minute and marveled at the frozen columns of ice and the water falling beside them. Put it my headphones, turned around, and ran home. Felt strong and happy to be outside on a clear path.
Did Rise/ Jessica Rae Bergamino
Did tear along.
Did carry the sour heave
of memory. Did fold my body
upon the pillow’s curve,
did teach myself to pray.
Did pray. Did sleep. Did choir
an echo to swell through time.
Did pocket watch, did compass.
Did whisper a girl from the silence
of ghost. Did travel on the folded map
to the roaring inside. Did see myself
smaller, at least, stranger,
where the hinge of losing had not yet
become loss. Did vein, did hollow
in light, did hold my own chapped hand.
Did hair, did makeup, did press
the pigment on my broken lip.
Did stutter. Did slur. Did shush
my open mouth, the empty glove.
Did grace, did dare, did learn the way
forgiveness is the heaviest thing to bare.
Did grieve. Did grief. Did check the weather,
choose the sweater, did patch the jeans
worn out along the seam. Did purchase,
did pressure, did put the safety on the scissors.
Did shuttle myself away, did haunt, did swallow
a tongue of sweat formed on the belly
of a day-old glass. Did ice, did block,
did measure the doing. Did carry.
Did return. Did slumber, did speak.
Did wash blood from the bitten nail,
the thumb that bruised. Did wash
the dirt-stained face, the dirt-stained
sheets. Did take the pills. Did not
take the pills. Cut the knots
from my own matted hair.
Love the repetition of this poem and the relentless “did” only stopped on the second to last line. Love the telling of a story and the expressing of feelings through the mundane listing of what she did.