What a wonderful way to start December! Love this cold air and the bright sun. And the shadows — mine was able to run below in the floodplain forest. Later, it went down on the Winchell Trail. I greeted Dave, the Daily Walker — Good morning Dave! What a beautiful morning! For the first mile I chanted in threes: girl girl girl/ ghost ghost ghost/ gorge gorge gorge.
I listened to the birds — I think I heard the clicking beak of a jay — and scattered voices on the way to the trestle. Tried out a few different playlists on the way back.
10 Things
running above the floodplain forest: brown and open and bottomless, brown leaves blending in with brown trunks
most of the steps down to the Winchell Trail are closed off with a chain, but not the old stone steps — why not?
the stretch of river just north of longfellow flats was half frozen
2 people walking below on the winchell trail with a dog — a LOUD conversation. One of them was wearing a bright orange — or was it red? — jacket
steady streams of cars at different spots on the river road
a fast runner passed me with their arms down at their sides, swinging them low. Were they running like this the whole time, or did they just do it when they passed me?
more darting squirrels
there are certain stretches I don’t remember running through — like the part of the walking trail that separates from the bike path right before the trestle. Why can’t I picture it?
after I finished the run, walking back on the grass between Edmund and the river road, heard the knocking of a woodpecker high up in a tree. I craned my neck and arched my back to see it, but no luck
In number 1 I said the floodplain forest was empty, but I just remembered that there was a thin line of orange leafed trees on the southern edge of it
Just ordered A. R. Ammons’ Tape for the Turn of the Year. Reading it might be my December project — will see, when it arrives on Monday. I think it might be a good inspiration for my Haunts poem as I continue to work on it.
One more note: At the halfway point, before heading back, I hiked down on the Winchell Trail to the curved railing. I took a picture. I decided to only take one, but I wondered if I should have taken more. Yes, I should have. When I looked at the picture after the run, there was the shadow of my thumb in the corner. Oops.
Warmer today. Sunny, bright, clear. The river sparkled and burned. Shadows everywhere. Big columns of ice next to the falls, a thin sheen of ice on the steps and the bridge over the creek. Saw my shadow far below me while I was above on the bridge over to the veterans’ home. Encountered at least half a dozen darting squirrels, one was heading straight towards me but did a sharp turn away at the last minute. Near the end of my run, I saw and heard a vee of geese flying low in the sky — maybe 12 of them? Something about the blue sky and the brilliant light made their wingtips look silver. I didn’t stop running, but I craned my neck as I moved to keep watching them.
10 Sounds
kids at recess, playing on the playground at minnehaha academy: scattered voices laughing, yelling
some sort of chirping bird — not a cardinal, a robin? finch?
the caw caw of a crow, down in the gorge
the gushing falls — steadily falling creek water
rustling in the leaves, 1: a squirrel
rustling in the leaves, 2: a chipmunk or a bird
rustling in the leaves, 3: a person walking below me on the Winchell Trail
honking geese
a chain link fence rattling — someone playing disc golf near Waban
missing sounds: didn’t hear any roller skiers or music from a bike or a car, no bikes whizzing by or horns honking, and no fake train bell at the 50th street station as I ran near the John Stevens house
Stopped at the Folwell bench to admire the view and to check on my watch which had turned off. Bummer — out of charge, so no data from today’s run. Took a picture of the gorge:
5.5 miles franklin hill turn around 15 degrees / feels like 2
The coldest day of the season. Brrr. Extra layers: 2 black tights, yellow shirt, pink jacket, purple jacket, 2 pairs of gloves — black and pink/white, buff, hat with ear flaps, hood. Difficult to breathe for the first mile. Sunny, lots of shadows. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker. He was in his warmest attire, even had a stocking cap. There was ice near the shore of the river and sheets of ice on the surface of the water.
Brr. River surface starting to ice over / 28 nov 2023
For the first 4 miles, I listened to my feet striking the ground, cars driving by, the wind. For the last 1.5 miles, I put in Olivia Rodrigo.
before the run
Still working on my haunts poems, adding more to the ones I wrote 2 years ago. Yesterday I spent a lot of time working on the first section, trails, and thinking about paths and feet and my interest in following, connecting, learning new stories. As part of that work, I started rereading Wendell Berry’s excellent essay, “A Native Hill.” This morning, before my run, I’m still reading and thinking about it. While I run, I’d like to think about this passage:
Looking out over the country, one gets a sense of the whole of it: the ridges and hollows, the clustered buildings of the farms, the open fields, the woods, the stock ponds set like coins into the slopes. But this is a surface sense, such as you get from looking down on the roof of a house. The height is a threshold from which to step down into the wooded folds of the land, the interior, under the trees and along the branching streams.
“A Native Hill” / Wendell Berry
As I run, I’d like to think about these ideas of threshold and surface, and what it means to be above, always, looping around the gorge, rarely entering it. Is this only surface level? What is at the surface, and is the surface always superficial? What does it mean when the gorge is not a thing to enter, but an absence, an emptiness/void that is still present and shaping the land but is inaccessible?
during the run
Did I think about these things at all? Maybe a little as I looked down at the floodplain forest or the water. At one point, I thought about how I’m not completely inside of this place, but I’m still much more in it than if I were riding in a car.
In a related but different direction of thought, I remembered the lines I had just written this morning:
It begins here: from the ground up feet first, following. I want to go where others already have gone.
I thought about this following and how the others include past versions of me, the Saras that have already, day after day, year after year, travelled these same trails.
after the run
Sitting at my desk after my run, looking out at a mysterious pile of dirt left right in front of my sidewalk by workers for some unknown reason, feeling wiped out from the run, I’m not sure what to do with Berry’s passage. Maybe I’ll read some more of the essay?
Beyond the gate the land leans always more steeply towards the branch. I follow it down and then bear left along the crease at the bottom of the slope. I have entered the downflow of the land. The way I am going is the way the water goes. There is something comfortable and fit-feeling in this, something free in this yielding to gravity and taking the shortest way down.
“A Native Hill” / Wendell Berry
I love this line: The way I am going is the way the water goes.
Berry talks next about human-made erosion and how he laments the loss of land “before the white people drove their plows into it.”
It is not possible to know what was the shape of the land here in this hollow when it was first cleared. Too much of it is gone, loosened by the plows and washed away by the rain….The thought of what was here once and is gone forever will not leave me as long as I live. It is as though I walk knee-deep in its absence.
“A Native Hill” / Wendell Berry
The slopes along the hollow steepen still more, and I go in under the trees. I pass beneath the surface. I am enclosed, and my sense, my interior sense, of the country becomes intricate. There is no longer the possibility of seeing very far. The distances are closed off by the trees and the steepening walls of the hollow. One cannot grow familiar here by sitting and looking as one can up in the open on the ridge. Here the eyes become dependent on the feet. To see the woods from the inside one must look and move and look again. It is inexhaustible in its standpoint. A lifetime will not be enough to experience it all.
“A Native Hill” / Wendell Berry
Love it: Here the eyes become dependent on the feet. I’m finding a place for this line in my poem! Even when I am on the edge of the bluff looking down at the gorge, my vision isn’t very good. Everywhere I run, above or below, I’m dependent on my feet, and not just to get me to new places to see; sometimes I see with my feet.
Berry’s last lines about it being inexhaustible and how a lifetime will not be enough to experience it all brings me to another definition of going beyond the surface: to do more than briefly visit, to stay somewhere (to haunt it), to return to it again and again, each time learning something new, or encountering something slightly altered. This returning to the gorge day after day and giving attention is my way of connecting with it and attempting to experience as much of it as I can.
4.1 miles minnehaha falls and back 30 degrees 50% snow-covered
It snowed last night and left less than an inch on the ground. The trail was half clear, half snow-covered. A bit slick. I think my feet might have slipped some, but never enough to be a problem. Ran south to the falls. Beautiful! Gushing.
Ran without headphones and listened to my collar rubbing against my cap, a few voices rising up from the gorge, falling water.
Running just past the double bridge I smiled when I saw 2 turkeys up ahead on the path. I was wrong — no turkeys, only trees with plastic rings around their trunks, standing next to the path.
I’ve been working on my haunts poems and as I ran I thought about the plaques/ghosts bikes/flowers I just wrote about this morning. 3 instances of people dying in very unlikely circumstances: a boy picked at random and then shot in the back while biking; a runner hit by a driver who lost control when he had a seizure (or some sort of incident) because of 4 huge tumors in his brain he didn’t know were there; and a woman pulled over, fixing her bike, hit in a parking lot. Unsettling. The last one didn’t happen by the river, but in Germany; the woman was from this neighborhood and is remembered her by friends and family. The other two did, and at spots I regularly run by.
Today’s poem-of-the-day on poets.org, The Mountain, begins with these fitting lines:
There is snow, now— A thing of silent creeping—
…
There is snow, now— A silent creeping . . .
…
Snow, snow, snow— A thing of silent creeping
from The Mountain/ D’Arcy McNickle
I don’t mind the snow — in fact, I like it! — but it does silently creep. From now until March of April, adding inches, covering everything.
4.85 miles top of franklin to stone arch and back 27 degrees
Another Saturday run with Scott. We drove to the top of the franklin hill and started our run: down the hill, through the flats, up the 35W hill, past the Guthrie, to the Stone Arch bridge, then back. We ran up the whole hill and it felt great to me. So great that I, annoyingly I’m sure, sang “Eye of the Tiger” as we neared the top.
11 Things
ice on the seeps, 1: big columns of ice streaking the limestone
ice on the seeps, 2: so many streaks of ice; some of them stretched to the street and had melted and refroze on the road. A strange sight. It looked like someone had used “fake snow” spray paint to make it look like winter
a few scattered chunks of ice on the river
more bright green leaves still on some trees
a new apartment building that looked like it was made out of limestone, but was probably mostly concrete with a thin veneer of limestone
ducks! in the river, bobbing up, showing their butts
geese! in the river, too far away for me to see, loud honks
roller skiers, pt 1 — a whole crew of a dozen of more, heading south on the trail
roller skiers, pt 2 — bright pink jackets on 2, yellow on another, one in black and white
roller skiers, pt 3 — click clack scrape echoing off of the bridge
a runner sprinting up the hill — when I saw her I sang the Kate Bush song to Scott, Running up that hill
Here is a vision poem that I’d like to remember and return to:
A punctum is the little, unexpected extra in a photo. It is the face or the hand or the expression or the animal that you did not notice as you took the picture. It is simultaneously never the subject and entirely the subject. – Diana Weir
my earliest memory is of learning disappearance / on my father’s lap smudging an eraser across the page / even then i knew what i could lose if not careful / how whiteness operated to disappear you / have you ever been the first to leave a room / have you ever made your place behind the camera / my children might know me only out the corners of their eyes / when birds slam against rainbacked windows they leave their outlines / the water continues as if there was not dying all around it / are you seeing this / i ask someone here are you seeing this / how many buildings have i passed through without a sound / how many years only remember me by my imprint / when we speak
a word we are naming each of its previous utterances / i fear i am only the language i have kept alive / i fear i am only my name being poured down a hallway / are you seeing this / the light we look through took years to get here / to see the disaster you must first see its veil / our pupils not made to hold all this bright / our eyes call their blood to the photograph / to take an image you must first take all the light out of the room / please hold as i steady / please keep your eyes soft / as i click /
Ran with Scott. Cold, windy but sunny. Lots of wonderful shadows — ours, trees, lamp posts. Running across the lake street bridge at the end, the railing shadows made a cool pattern on the sidewalk. Combined with the breath-taking (at least for Scott) wind, it created a strange, untethered effect. Felt like I was floating or hovering or moving without touching ground. I asked Scott how he experienced it, and he said he was too focused on avoiding all of the groups of people approaching us on the bridge. Also seen on the bridge: a flyer posted on several of the posts that read “Killed by Israel.” I suggested to Scott that it should read, “Killed by the Israeli government.”
Found this poem the other day and it makes me think of how often I mistake one thing for something else as I run around the gorge:
I have to think about the ending some more — what does it mean to me? — but for now, what I like about this poem are the opening lines and the idea that other people also think they’re seeing dead animals when they’re actually seeing something else. I often think I’m seeing dead squirrels, when it’s actually a furry hat or a glove. These mistakes don’t make so sad or produce excess grief, just confusion and uncertainty and a little bit of morbid fascination.
I just realized what it means to me — the you is us, her readers. And she’s right, she is giving it to us, not as a burden to bear, but as an experienced shared. I love that about poetry, how you can write or read a poem and feel less alone, (a little) more understood.
Brrr, at least for the first mile. Had to put up my hood and breathe deeply. Ran through the neighborhood on my way to the lake street bridge instead of by the Welcoming Oaks. Such beautiful light this morning, bright warm sun. Saw my shadow several times. She kept wandering down in the ravine or right by the edge. I took a picture of her when I stopped at the Monument, which is a Civil War monument and not a WWI one (which is what Scott thought):
view of my shadow/river/bridge / 22 nov 2023
10 Things
water dripping at shadow falls — not quite rushing or gushing, but close
little white caps on the water from the wind
a bird calling out repeatedly, sounding like a car alarm — must have been a cardinal, right?
even less leaves on the trees than last week, although there are still stretches of bright green
one runner passing me slowly, gradually
another running zooming past me up the hill
the satisfying feeling of sandy grit crunching under my feet as I ran on the dirt rail next to the paved path
on the St. Paul side most of the benches have plaques embedded in the concrete, none of them do on the Minneapolis side
spotting a parked car, glowing in the sun on the west side of the river as I ran on the east side
noisy, darting squirrels everywhere
before the run
Today I’m revising and expanding my part of the Haunts poem about the Regulars, the people (both alive and dead) that are regularly at the gorge. I’d like to add something about the “in memory of” plaques along the trail, mostly embedded in the concrete near benches. So I’m giving myself a task: take pictures of more of these plaques to write about in my 3/2 form. Will I do it? Will I be willing to stop and take these pictures? How many of them can I get?
Speaking of plaques, I was curious about how to get one and how much they cost. Here’s the link for Minneapolis: Tributes and Memorials
To get a bench plaque, fill out the interest form on the site. It’s $5000 for a new bench for 10 years, $2500 for a refurbished bench for 10 years. Only 10 years.
Here’s St Paul’s information. Same 10 year deal, although you can add 10 year increments for an additional $1500 at any time. Also: It’s $5000 for a new bench/10 years at St. Paul Parks, except along the Mississippi River Parkway. Those are $10000. That seems like a lot — is it?
during the run
I did it! Starting by the monument, I stopped at every bench and took a picture of the plaque next to it. Lots of stopping, but it was fun! 12 images in total. I didn’t read any of the inscriptions, just stopped, took out my phone, clicked, put my phone back in my pocket, then started running again. I would imagine that some of the people I encountered were wondering what I was doing. I kind of wish one of them would have asked so I could say something like, “I’m working on a poem about the gorge and I’m gathering memorials to include in it.”
after the run
Now, back at my desk, I’m looking through the images. Almost all of them are legible! So far, there’s only one I can’t read and that’s because I made it a 4 second video instead of a photo. Oops. Oh–and it’s always because it’s in a cursive font that’s very hard to read.
It’s moving to read these memorials, many of them about people who died too young. I’m particularly struck by one that says, “Just a kid growing up!” — Tony Basta, 12/1/99
Memorial plaque along the Mississippi River Bluff in St. Paul
I had no idea what this meant, so I looked it up. On April 26, 2000, while riding his bike along the Mississippi River (near Randolph) around 10 pm, 17 year old Tony Basta was shot and killed by 3 teenagers who wanted to shoot a random person “just to scare them.” Basta’s parents had the plaque made; the quote is from Tony in his yearbook. Wow. So heartbreaking and haunting — the details in this article (Tony Basta’s Murder 10 Years Ago) about the bystander who heard the shot and thought it was fireworks, his father who owns The Italian Pie Shoppe, the girl who overheard the killers telling the story at a party and reported them, earning a reward that paid for her college, the killer who expresses daily regret.
Will any of this make it into my poem? Possibly? Probably? Who knows? I’m not sure what will come of these accounts, but it feels meaningful to bear witness to the lives of the people on these plaques today.
As I was finishing up my run, my thoughts wandered. I thought about having one of these plaques for when I’m dead and how I’d want poetry on it. Then I thought, why wait until then and why put it on a plaque? What about leaving some poetry around the gorge now? Then I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to leave some lines from my haunts poem — some parts of my repeating refrain that includes, a girl runs and ghost and gorge? And now I’m thinking that I want to do some sort of unofficial public installation of this poem around the gorge. It could be lines left on the path or tied to a tree, or it could be QR codes with links to the text and a recording of me reading it. YES! I should research how others do public installations for inspiration.
*ran the regular franklin loop but when I reached the lake/marshall bridge I kept running up the hill on the east side, all the way to the bench at the bend on the bluff. I took a picture of a plaque, then turned around and ran back to the bridge and then over it.
a plaque in the ground by a bench
I looked up the sentence/title and it’s a lyric from a song by the person remembered on the plaque, Jeff Hanson. It was on his second of three albums. He was found dead in his St. Paul apartment by his parents in 2009. According to Wikipedia the cause of death was “drug toxicity” — a mixture of anti-depressant and anti-anxiety pills with alcohol — and they couldn’t determine if it was accidental or self-inflicted. So sad.
One of the reasons I stopped to take a picture of the plaque was because I’m revising my Haunts poem and I gave myself the task of finding more of the plaques and then putting them into a section of the poem that follows “The Regulars.”
Overcast today, a pale gray. Another nice, relaxed run. Another beautiful morning by the gorge. Greeted Dave, the daily walker just a few minutes in. Admired the Welcoming Oaks and the tuning fork tree. No stones stacked on the ancient boulder. Chanted triple berries for a few miles. Felt good and strong and happy to be running a 10k.
10+ Things
the river is higher — the water has spilled over into the floodplain on the spot below 31st
jingle jingle jingle a dog collar making noise below me on the Winchell Trail
clear open views everywhere to the other side — almost all the leaves are gone!
one tree still full of leaves — the leaves were browned but so light they almost looked silver
a few other trees on the east side still holding onto bright green leaves
encountered several U of M students with backpacks walking over to campus
a sign on the bridge — End the Occupation
every street lamp I passed on the bridge had had their copper wire cut — some of them were also missing the door at the bottom that covers the wires, and one lamp had lost its entire top — it was just a stump
the white sands beach was glowing white from across the river
many of the benches I passed had recently been repaired — the three slats for the back had been replaced — I wondered: did the old boards have “in memory of” plaques, and do those not get replaced?
on the bridge, looked up in the sky and stopped: 3 soaring birds, high in the sky — eagles? hawks? geese? I couldn’t tell
