3.75 miles
47th ave loop
47 degrees
Deaths from COVID-19: 221 (MN)/ 50,031 (US)
Wow, what a glorious morning! Soft light, hardly any wind, singing birds, uncrowded paths. Everything felt calm, relaxed. I don’t remember looking at the river that often, but I do remember the sky over the gorge and the view on the bluff near Folwell. Beautiful.
Anything else I remember from my run? I’ve noticed–today and yesterday, at least–that the morning sun makes it hard for me to see people sometimes. It also makes it almost impossible for me to determine if people are coming towards me or are moving away from me–is that the cone dystrophy or my near-sightedness? Not sure.
I recited Emily Dickinson’s “It’s all I have to bring today” again and I’m liking it more. The second line with the anapest–“This, and my heart beside”–is still awkward, but I like running to “this, my heart, and all the fields/and all the meadows wide” and “this, and my heart, and all the bees, which in the clover dwell.”
When I got back from my run, I started thinking about changing the words of Dickinson’s poem to fit with my run:
It’s all I have to bring today—
This, and my knee beside—
This, my knee and all the trees—
And all the river wide
Be sure to count — should I forget
Some one the sum could tell —
This, and my knee, and all the Birds
whose songs can cast a Spell.
Not totally happy with my words, but I’ll work on it some more. I struggle to understand “some one the sum could tell.” It mostly makes sense, but it still trips me up.
more wild turkey sightings!
Yesterday on our walk, near the tree graveyard, we saw 2 more wild turkeys! Scott took some video and posted it on instagram:
Finally, looking back through my log posts from 2018, I found this beautiful poem. It will be the next one that I memorize. So many lines I am looking forward to learning and keeping.
Dear One Absent This Long While/ Lisa Olstein
It has been so wet stones glaze in moss;
everything blooms coldly.
I expect you. I thought one night it was you
at the base of the drive, you at the foot of the stairs,
you in a shiver of light, but each time
leaves in wind revealed themselves,
the retreating shadow of a fox, daybreak.
We expect you, cat and I, bluebirds and I, the stove.
In May we dreamed of wreaths burning on bonfires
over which young men and women leapt.
June efforts quietly.
I’ve planted vegetables along each garden wall
so even if spring continues to disappoint
we can say at least the lettuce loved the rain.
I have new gloves and a new hoe.
I practice eulogies. He was a hawk
with white feathered legs. She had the quiet ribs
of a salamander crossing the old pony post road.
Yours is the name the leaves chatter
at the edge of the unrabbited woods.