Tag: 10 things

jan 16

4.25 miles
minnehaha falls and back
0 degrees / feels like -20

Brr. I really bundled up for this one, even busted out the big guns: toe and finger warmers. They worked!

layers: 2 pairs of black running tights, a green base layer shirt, pink jacket with hood, purple jacket zipped up to my chin, black fleece cap with ear flaps, pink and orange buff covering my mouth, 2 pairs of socks — gray, white — with toe warmers in between them, 1 pair of black gloves, 1 pair of pink/red/green mittens, hand warmers, sunglasses

My forehead felt a little cold at the beginning, but mostly I felt warm enough. My legs started to get sore near the end, which I think was because of the cold: not enough blood to my calf/thigh because it was going to my vital organs — I read that somewhere a few years ago.

10+ Things

  1. a regular! the runner, Santa Claus
  2. the river, frozen — light brown mixed with white, flat
  3. the feebee call of the black-capped chickadee
  4. a few squirrels, scampering
  5. running straight into the sun: my sharp shadow, so sharp I could see the shadow of my breath
  6. one biker — brrr
  7. brittle leaves, scratching on the pavement
  8. a sharp squeak, almost like a little bunny crying out: trees creaking in the wind
  9. the falls, near the ledge: half frozen, sounding like the spray hose on a kitchen sink
  10. the falls, by the overlook: gushing, rushing past the ice, flushing out the bottom
  11. beep beep beep of a truck backing up, sounding flat and smaller than usual
  12. the light rail across Hiawatha rushing by — I wondered how cold the commuters were
  13. almost forgot this one: the wind moving fast through dead leaves on some trees sounded like sizzling heat. I heard it just as the wind was blowing in my face and I felt particularly cold. I imagined it was so cold that it was hot

before my run

I’m in the slow process of reviewing my entries from 2023, a month at a time. Right now, April. On April 18th, I wrote about some ideas from writers/poets that were inspiring my thoughts about an eighth colorblind plate poem on the glitter effect. Paige Lewis and A.R. Ammons and flares and flames and rust. And now I’m thinking about writing one more colorblind plate poem that describes how my own color system works using texture and movement and contrast. It replaces ROYGBIV. Maybe I’ll try and think about it more as I run — when I’m not thinking about how cold I am!

a process note: Rereading all of my entries for the year and summarizing them takes a long time, but it’s worth it. Not only does it offer useful summaries, but going back and reencountering words/ideas/experiences offers new inspiration or old, half-finished projects (like the colorblind plates). And the laborious process of doing this structured task sometimes opens me up to wandering and remembering and imagining that can lead to new words and new ways in.

task: on my run, try to think about motion and texture

during my run

As predicted, I focused mostly on noticing the cold and the wind — such a cold wind in my face! I do remember thinking that the river was flat and stuck, with no sparkle or motion. I thought about contrast with the shadows. Leaves shaking in the wind. Oh — and I thought about how the small things I notice — the little flashes of movement, sound, texture — accumulate into something bigger. This is part of the conversation I started yesterday about flares versus slow burns and whether or not to dazzle. None of the things I notice Dazzle! in a quick burst, but together they add up to something special. After thinking of this idea, I remember Hannah Emerson’s poem, “Peripheral” and the lines:

Direct looking just is too
much killing of the moment.

Looking oblique littles
the moment into many

helpful moments.
Moment moment moment

moment keep in the moment.

after the run

And now, remembering all of these ideas, I’m suddenly thinking of Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant –”

The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

Yes, dazzle means to be temporarily blinded by light, or overpowered with light. What does this have to do with what I’m working on right now? Not sure.

And now, back to windows. Here’s a small poem I found the other day that I like. It’s part of a larger series of poems titled, Still Life:

Window/ Phillip Murray

Through the dark
Glassly
It is light
Falling

jan 11/RUN

4 miles
almost to franklin and back
15 degrees / feels like 0

Okay winter! A good run even though my legs felt heavy and tired for the first mile. And I was cold — felt it in my lungs. Saw Dave, the Daily Walker, and when he asked, how are you doing?, I replied: I’m cold! To which he said, that’s Minnesota or something like that. The sun was out today and I think I remember admiring my shadow. Heard some strange, almost strangled, noises down in the gorge. Probably honking geese, or maybe a feral kid having fun? Encountered at least one fat tire, a few walkers, no roller skiers. The walking path was covered in slippery snow, but the bike path was almost completely clear. The sky was blue, the trees were empty, the river was? I know I looked at the river, but I don’t remember what color it was or if it had more ice on it.

layers I started in: 2 pairs of black running tights; a bright green tank top; a previously bright green base layer shirt with the sleeves over my thumbs; a purple jacket zipped up to my chin; a pink and orange buff covering my neck and ears; a black cap with fleece lining and ear flaps down; gray socks; raspberry red shoes; 2 pairs of gloves — inner ones were black, outer bright pink with white stripes.

layers I ended in: 2 pairs of black running tights; a bright green tank top; a previously bright green base layer shirt pushed up on my arms a little; a purple jacket unzipped a few inches; a pink and orange buff around my neck; a black cap with fleece lining and ear flaps up; gray socks; raspberry red shoes; 1 pair of black gloves — the bright pink ones were in my pocket.

Listened to my breathing, cars, geese as I ran north. Put in my new “Windows” playlist (see below) on the way back south.

Interruption: An Assay/ Jane Hirshfield

Sometimes you took the shape
of an unseen mosquito,
sometimes of illness.

Presumed most of the time to be passing,
yet importunate as a toddler
who demanded her own way,
as a phone that would not stop ringing long after it should.

Unignorable pavement slap of the gone-flat tire.

All afternoon the thunder was interrupted by sunshine.
All night the rain was interrupted by trees and roofs.

And still, as rusting steel is uninterrupted by dryness
and hunger uninterrupted by sleep,
interruption and non-interruption sat in the day’s container
as salt sits in milk, one whiteness disguised by another.

As a fish in a tank is interrupted by glass, and turns,
a person’s fate is to continuedespite,
until.

Death: an interruption not passing,
weighing
one hundred and fifty-eight pounds,
carried on cut plywood with yellow straps.

Birth: an interruption between
two windows,
trying to think of any joke, any tune, that is new.

Between them:

this navigation by echolocation and lidar,
the weathers of avalanche, earthquake, tsunami,
firestorm, drought;
a moment that sets down—gently, sleepily—its half-read novel
on a bedside table whose side turned toward the wall stays unpainted,
confident the story will be there again come morning.

definition of an assay

Assays began with a poem written after I’d reread Edgar Allan Poe’s stories while writing an essay on how hiddenness works in poems. Some of the qualities of essay exploration and prose step lingered in its music and mode of thinking. At the time, I was regularly seeing the journal Science. On the back would often be advertisements for half-million-dollar machines for performing assays. That word—close to essay and sharing its root in the idea of an attempt, a try—refers to discovering a thing’s nature by breaking it into its elemental parts. The poem became ‘Poe: An Assay.’ That approach to writing, of testing a subject for its discoverable parts, imaginative and factual, caught. I began writing others. ‘Judgment: An Assay.’ ‘Tears: An Assay.’ ‘And: An Assay.'”

Jane Hirshfield

assay (def): the testing of a metal or ore to determine its ingredients and quality

my own interruption

Sitting at my desk, in front of my window, half-listening to the latest Foo Fighter album, an interruption — lyrics: there is something between us/I see right through/waiting on the other side of the glass. A window interrupting me! It’s strange how interruptions work. I’ve written/taught/spoke about the learning to let the world interrupt you. Maybe it’s not about letting the world interrupt you — it will do that anyway — but being open to that interruption, letting it in — opening the window to it?

a few more random window references that recently interrupted me:

  • Maria in The Sound of Music: “When the Lord closes the door, somewhere he opens a window.”
  • She Came in Through the Bathroom Window/ The Beatles
  • My Own Worst Enemy/ Lit — came in through the window last night (thanks Scott)

With all three of these examples, I’m thinking about the window and how it’s not a door. And in The Beatles and Lit examples there’s something not-quite-right, not normal, unacceptable about entering through the window. Using the window instead of the door is another way of saying something about your life is fucked up.

  • unrelated to these other examples, the scene of the window in The Amityville Horror– 1979 (iykyk) — I still think about that window falling on the kid’s hand sometimes. I’m not sure I’ve seen the whole movie — maybe I watched this bit on HBO and was too freaked out to watch the rest?
window pain!

Okay, now I want to make a window playlist to listen to as I think more about windows! (after the run): I did, and I listened to the first

Window/Fiona Apple
Window/Genesis
Window/Mountain Man
Smokin Out the Window/Silk Sonic
Keep Passing the Open Windows/Queen
Lookin’ Through the Windows/Jackson 5

jan 10/RUN

4.85 miles
minnehaha falls and back
23 degrees / feels like 16

Yes! A much better run than yesterday. My legs were sore at the beginning, but the path was clear and I had enough layers to keep warm. As I ran south, I noticed the river was gray — pewter, I think — or was it steel?

Heading towards the falls, I listened to the kids laughing on the playground, the rushing water at the falls, and the ding ding dinging of the light rail bells leaving the station. Heading home, I listened to a playlist (10K 2018). First song: Vampire Weekend’s “Step.” Memorable line: they don’t know how to dress for the weather

10 Things

  1. smoke coming from the house on edmund that always smells like smoke in the winter
  2. a woodpecker’s laugh
  3. pewter river
  4. city workers across the road near becketwood — what were they doing?
  5. the big dip on the edge of the biking path, almost to Godfrey, has finally been patched
  6. a man — not driving an official truck or wearing an official uniform — emptying the cash out of parking meter kiosk near the old Minnehaha depot
  7. traffic rushing by on hiawatha
  8. the creek was dark and open, no ice, just a little foam
  9. 2 humans and a small dog, walking across the grass near the falls
  10. a fast running speeding by me as I stood at my favorite falls spot and put in my headphones

the windows I encounter while running outside:

  • familiar houses, on the route I take almost every day — does a neighbor notice me (like I notice the runners and walkers that pass by my window) and think, there goes that woman running again, or maybe they mark their day with my run: she ran past, time for another cup of coffee
  • car windows — I can’t ever see in these windows — I never visualize people, just imagine what they might be thinking: I wish I was out there running or Why would anyone run in this weather?
  • John Steven’s house windows — are they boarded up from the fires last year?
  • Minnehaha Depot windows
  • Light rail windows — could anyone on the train see me from that far away

question: Do windows have to have glass to be windows? Is an empty frame enough?
answer: Yes? one def: an opening especially in the wall of a building for admission of light and air that is usually closed by casements or sashes containing transparent material (such as glass) and capable of being opened and shut

The other day I wrote in my Plague Notebook, Vol 18: post-pandemic window poems? And here’s something great that’s not a poem. I found it on my reading list in the 21st spot.

The window as isolation, shelter, protection, connection to the outside world, hope, longing. So many wonderful things happening in this story (essay?)! Instead of just posting it, I want to comment on each window.

APRIL 2020, FROM MY WINDOWS/ Kleopatra Olympiou

Second floor window, across:
A man who plays the piano at all times of the day, his keyboard by the window. I see the staccato movement of his fingers but hear no sound. His expression is thoughtful and I can’t say if the notes are right, if he’s pleased, or what he’s feeling. Sometimes he plays in his underwear and I avert my gaze. He could see me if he looks up, but never does – it’s dusk and I have the lights on. When he turns his own light off and leaves the room, I catch a reflection of myself doing the dishes in the mirror at the back of his bedroom.

details that strike me: no sound — why not? too cold (or hot) to have the window open? he has headphones on? my choice: her apartment is sealed up tight — isolation; the piano player’s expression is unreadable or empty; the narrator averts her eyes; the narrator has her lights on, is on display, but he never looks; that reflection of herself in his mirror — wow

Window next door, a wall away from the pianist:
Sometimes, a woman looking bored on her laptop. Most of the time the curtain is drawn, and in the darkness all I can see is the yellow that leaks out. This window doesn’t want to be looked at, so I leave it alone.

the yellow that leaks out; the way the narrator respects the bored looking woman’s privacy; again, no sound

Next door, downstairs:
A living room I often catch in the cool half-light of the TV screen, watching the rippled colour move like the walls of an aquarium. Submerged and elsewhere. On the half-obscured sofa to the right I glimpse a hand slowly stroking a bare calf.

submerged and elsewhere; the stroking hand/stroked calf; limited vision: the cool half-light, half-obscured sofa, disembodied hand and calf

To the left, first floor:
A guy in his twenties, probably, laughing into a video call, or he’s taking a selfie, or updating his Instagram story, I can’t be sure since he quickly lowers his arm and loses the grin. For a long time he types on his phone.

no sound, no clear understanding of what’s happening

In the street in front:
The pavement is partly overgrown with weeds, and in the morning I watch a father and young son diligently clear them away. Through the glass I can’t hear what they’re saying. The boy gesticulates energetically from somewhere within the depths of a coat, hat, gloves, wellies. His dad laughs, and with thick gardening gloves brushes the rough shavings of soil out of the way. The boy is serious when he nods his approval – this is no game, but real community service.

an acknowledgment of the lack of sound: through the glass I can’t hear, people outside — only one window (narrator’s) between them

Further left, in a garden:
A middle-aged man waters some flowers while a woman refills a birdfeeder with seeds. Soon they go back indoors and I can see nothing but the glaze of the white sky on their window.

women outside (one window), visible, women go back inside (two windows — the women’s the narrator’s), hidden by the reflection of sky in a window

From my living room window:
Three veterinary nurses in green uniforms walking dogs on the grass by the graveyard. They play fetch and the dogs fire off into the trees – soon they all go, and will return tomorrow, and the day after.

even if the window tightly shut, can’t you hear the dogs barking? dogs are LOUD.

From the same window, later in the afternoon:
A woman and a little girl stand in front of a fresh grave, neat and lined with wood. Some days ago I watched a man from the church shovel grass and dirt away, and another day five figures gathered while a priest read mutely from an open book. The priest and his book went away to the church (chimney smoking) and, among the guests, I stood silent at my window, part of the ceremony. Today only the woman and the girl visit the grave, holding hands.

the narrator was part of the ceremony

It is dusk again at the living room window:
A magpie stops on one of the bony branches across, later a crow, a pigeon, a robin. In the distance I see the white bobbing of rabbits running among the tombstones.

Birds! a tree branch, a bobbing rabbit (nice work, resisting the impulse to write, bobbing bunnies

Then there is me, quarantined and at my nightly window, weaving my hair into a braid:
I listen to the creaks in the kitchen and Google my building, searching for estate agent photos of the other apartments, trying to piece together a virtual whole. I imagine a flat identical to mine next door, inverted – maybe the silent neighbours I’ve never spoken to are also at their windows, looking out. Maybe the pianist can see us, our kitchens a wall apart, divided. In my living room the curtains are never drawn. At night I sit illuminated and hope, for something.

sound — a creaking kitchen, silent neighbors

And, one more window thing. I’m slowly reading through Wendell Berry’s Window poems. Here’s 15. So good!

15. / Wendell Berry

The sycamore gathers
out of the sky, white
in the glance that looks up to it
through the black crisscross
of the window. But it is not a glance
that it offers itself to.
It is no lightning stroke
caught in the eye. It stays,
an old holding in place.
And its white is not so pure
as a glance would have it,
but emerges partially,
the tree’s renewal of itself,
among the mottled browns
and olives of the old bark.
Its dazzling comes into the sun
a little at a time
as though a god in it
is slowly revealing himself.
How often the man of the window
has studied its motley trunk,
the out-starting of its branches,
its smooth crotches,
its revelations of whiteness,
hoping to see beyond his glances,
the distorting geometry
of preconception and habit,
to know it beyond words.
All he has learned of it
does not add up to it.
There is a bird who nests in it
in the summer and seems to sing of it–
the quick light among its leaves
–better than he can.
It is not by his imagining
its whiteness comes.
The world is greater than its words.
To speak of it the mind must bend.

some thoughts:

WB’s glance can’t capture what the sycamore is

love this:
lightning stroke caught in the eye as description of seeing

the tree emerges at a different pace — not fast/immediate/NOW! that we expect with our glances
emerges partially — dazzle coming into the sun a little at a time

the man of the window

beyond his glances
the distorting geometry of preconception and habit?
beyond words
more than what he has learned/seen/understands
the bird here reminds me of A.R. Ammons and his discussion of language in garbage — see april 10, 2023

mind must bend? be at a slant (Emily Dickinson)?

jan 9/RUN

2 miles
river road, south/edmund, north
29 degrees
75% super-slick snow

This doesn’t happen often, but today was not a good day to go out for a run. Maybe I would have enjoyed it if I had worn my yaktrax, but I didn’t. So slippery and difficult to move. A cold wind. Even so, by the end of it I was wishing I would have stayed out there a little longer; I was just getting warmed up!

10 Things

  1. a gray sky
  2. gray paths — the dark pavement visible through the slushy snow
  3. a cold wind in my face
  4. some dark brownish red dirt sprinkled on one small stretch of the trail
  5. a runner approaching, taking very small steps
  6. the river road, snow and ice free
  7. the bench near folwell, empty
  8. a few headlights
  9. a lumbering, noisy truck
  10. still no poem on the windows of the house on edmund

windows

Yesterday I did the tedious work of searching for “window” in my log entries — 12 pages of entries. Then I tagged the relevant ones with “windows.” Last night and this morning, I’ve been looking through those tagged entries for lines of poetry that use the image of a window — 19 pages / 181 entries. It is time-consuming, but rewarding to be immersed in windows and to have the chance to think more about how the word/idea/image is used in poetry.

I hope to have more to write later, but for now, here are a few thoughts:

  • things viewed from the window most often: trees and birds and weather
  • often things press against the window, sometimes they rattle them — sometimes they press from the outside — the heat, the cold, the green, and sometimes from the inside — children’s faces against the glass
  • windows separate us from the world
  • a common cry: open the windows!
  • sometimes the window is one of many images, sometimes the whole poem is built around it
  • some poets write window, others like windowpane
  • a favorite part of the window: windowsill
  • sometimes included with window: blinds, curtains, shades
  • window as line/bar between inner and outer
  • window as distorted or makeshift mirror
  • whether the window is dark or lit matters, makes a difference in image meaning — we can see through dark windows, while lit windows reflect back
  • sometimes windows are openings, sometimes they’re barriers
  • enclosing and disclosing — concealing (or keep safe) or revealing
  • more poems want you to open the windows than shut them
  • window as access to the soul, the spark of life within
  • window as word, as language
  • the divide between the domestic space and the world — private/public
  • the window as opportunity to stop thinking and just be — look out the window with me
  • some birds notice the windows, others don’t — this noticing can be a mistaken belief that there’s another bird on the other side
  • some birds notice us on the other side of the window, others don’t and are just observed

Wow, this is fun!

Here’s a window poem for today:

11/ Lao-tzu 
Translated from the Chinese by Red Pine

Thirty spokes converge on a hub
but it’s the emptiness
that makes a wheel work
pots are fashioned from clay
but it’s the hollow
that makes a pot work
windows and doors are carved for a house
but it’s the spaces
that make a house work
existence makes a thing useful
but nonexistence makes it work  

SUNG CH’ANG-HSING says, “In this verse the Great Sage teaches us to understand the source by using what we find at hand. Doors refer to a persons mouth and nose. Windows refer to their ears and eyes.”

I love this idea of doors as breath and windows as attention!

one more thing about windows:

Sitting at my desk in front of my window just now, I suddenly felt something heavy lifting. Then I realized that the sun had finally, after several days of hiding behind clouds, appeared. Of course it’s gone again, but it was there in my window for a moment, I swear.

jan 8/RUN

5.3 miles
franklin loop
27 degrees
snow / 100% snow-covered

Before my run, looking out the window, I noticed it was snowing. Of course I went out; it’s fun to run in the snow! Wore my yaktrax for the first time. No problems. A great run. I felt strong and happy to be outside by the river, which was still open with only a few clumps of ice. I was able to run on the walking trail the entire time.

10 Things

  1. good morning Dave!
  2. Daddy Long Legs called out to me: good work!
  3. the shore’s edge across the river, where the snow was collecting, was glowing white. I think the blurry view due to the falling snow made it glow even more
  4. footprints in the snow, a few of them smeared — is there where someone slipped?
  5. intense smell of weed on the bridge
  6. park — or city? — workers parked on the bike path — flashing lights and one worker dropping a hose down somewhere
  7. a chain across the entrance to the old stone steps
  8. a few of lights were lit on the lake street bridge, most were still out, their wires stolen
  9. no eagle perched on the dead branch near the lake street bridge
  10. a soft, quick crunch as my feet struck the snowy path

Nearing the turn off for the Franklin bridge I deliberated: the franklin loop, or down the hill? I had this strange feeling that the choice mattered. Choosing wrong might mean slipping on an icy path, or worse. I guess I chose right, or my worries were unfounded.

the view from my windows (10:21 am)

2 pairs of windows — one set in front of me, 1 set to the right side. Today it is snowing — only flurries. The grass is half covered in yesterday’s dusting, the sidewalks are white. A few scraggly trees — almost off my front right edge: a pussy willow tree and beyond that a tall, wide trunk — too tall to see the top without moving forward in my chair. 20 or 30 minutes ago, someone walked by with a dog. Now, an empty sidewalk.

Wendell Berry’s Windows poems

Berry has 27 short-ish window poems. Before my run, I read 10 of them. Here are a few notes/thoughts/lines:

1

window as wind’s eye looking out through the black frame
eye as window (to the soul)
winter: white sky, snow squalls, corn blades

2

fall: foliage has dropped/below the window’s grave edge
bare sky, greenness gone, buds asleep in the air
the hard facts: the black grid of the window

3

40 panes, 40 clarities
window glass streaked with rain, smudged with dust
wild graph of its growth
the window is a form of consciousness
window mind wild consciousness river wind blown seed cobwebs

4

this is the wind’s eye,/Wendell’s window
In the low room/within the weathers,/sitting at the window,
the spark at his wrist/flickers and dies, flickers/and dies

5

Look in/and see him looking out.
hill (the native hill?) — wears a patched robe/of some history that he knows/and some that he/does not
the cattle watch him from the distant field

but there are mornings
when his soul emerges
from darkness
as out of a hollow in a tree
high on the crest
and takes flight
with savage joy and harsh
outcry down the long slope
of the leaves.

What he has understood
lies behind him
like a road in the woods. He is
a wilderness looking out
at the wild.

6

third person: as the man works
the window, alive: the window/staring into the valley/as though conscious
dreariness as comfort: As the man works/the weather moves/upon his mind, its dreariness/a kind of comfort

7

birds learn to trust him, then ignore him: That they ignore him/ he takes in tribute to himself.
birds as free — reckless with their eating, not concerned with the high cost of seeds

8

the river rises, nears the window
a storm, out of the corner of his eye, troubles the working Wendell

9

outside, birds: the air is a bridge/and they are free
Berry/writer is
set apart
by the black grid of the window
and, below it, the table
of the contents of his mind:
notes and remnants,
uncompleted work,
unanswered mail,
unread books
–the subjects of conscience,
his yoke-fellow,
whose whispered accounting
has stopped one ear, leaving him
half deaf to the world.
Some pads of paper,
eleven pencils,
a leaky pen,
a jar of ink
are his powers. He’ll
never fly.

10

a rainstorm/flood — what a beautiful description here!

The window
looks out, like a word,
upon the wordless, fact
dissolving into mystery, darkness
overtaking light.

the water recedes:
Facts emerge from it:
drift it has hung in the trees,
stranded cans and bottles,
new carving in the banks

First, the line, facts emerge from it, reminds me of another poem about a time after the rain, After the Rain/Jared Carter:

After the rain, it’s time to walk the field
again, near where the river bends. Each year
I come to look for what this place will yield –
lost things still rising here.

Second, I’m struck by how Berry is using the window to talk about being a writer. I need to read and think about it some more before I say anything else, but it has to do with contrasts between wild and conscious/aware, interior and exterior, looking and being looked at, the word as constructed/fact and the wordless as mystery.

As I read Berry’s words, I keep thinking about Mary Oliver and her discussion in The Leaf and the Cloud about the tensions between writing a poem and being in and of the world.

jan 6/RUN

4.15 miles
bottom of franklin hill (short)
32 degrees

Another Saturday run with Scott. Last night, we got a light dusting of snow which made everything frosty and a little slick at the start. Scott talked about the latest mash-up he’s arranging with the theme from Taxi and Green Day’s Brain Stew, Chicago’s 25 or 6 to 4. Then I talked about my latest focus on doors and windows and how it is allowing me to engage with things (poems, essays, ideas) that I’ve collected previously but were buried in a file folder or a log entry.

As we ran down the hill I mentioned something I had read in an essay by George Orwell, Why I Write. He describes how when he was an undergrad at Berkeley* he wanted to be an intellectual, but when he was supposed to be reading Hegel he would always be looking out the window, admiring the flowers instead.

*Scott didn’t hear anything after I said Orwell went to Berkeley; he was confused, believing that Orwell never left England. I checked the essay when I got home and realized that there were two versions of “Why I Write” in the document, one by Orwell, one by Joan Didion. The reference to Berkeley was from Joan Didion. Sometimes I get frustrated with Scott’s attention to details, but he’s usually right and I’m grateful that he caught this mistake (which was my fault, but not totally; the essays were placed one after the other in a document that was not well marked. His almost always being right can be irritating, but that’s more my problem than his, I guess.

Here’s the quote:

During the years when I was an undergraduate at Berkeley I tried, with a kind of hopeless late-adolescent energy, to buy some temporary visa into the world of ideas, to forge for myself a mind that could deal with the abstract.

In short I tried to think. I failed. My attention veered inexorably back to the specific, to the tangible, to what was generally considered, by everyone I knew then and for that matter have known since, the peripheral.

Why I Write/ Joan Didion

I love her mention of the peripheral. That’s where I spend all of my time too — literally and figuratively.

10 Things

  1. stretches of the trail were slick and my feet slipped a few times
  2. the knocking of a woodpecker — the sound echoed through an empty field
  3. the ice chunks on the river yesterday had melted and were replaced with swirls of foam
  4. the quiet thuds of a faster runner approaching from behind
  5. after he passed us, he kicked a big branch off to the side (we were grateful and impressed that he was able to do it while running fast down the hill)
  6. there was a thin layer of snow on the top of the concrete wall next to the river
  7. the suspended path on the other side — in the east river flats — looked inviting — I’d like to run it before it’s closed for the winter — maybe it already is?
  8. passing by the ghost bike hanging from the trestle
  9. the curved fence above the big sewer pipe was easy to see below us — no more leaves blocking our view
  10. passing a guy walking a dog on the sidewalk, saying good morning — realizing it was not morning but afternoon — 12:30 — we went out for the run a little later than usual

At the bottom of the franklin hill, Scott used my phone to take some video of the foamy, fast-moving water. Here’s a short clip:

fast moving foam / 5 jan 2024

Here are two passages from Virginia Woolf’s Street Haunting that include windows and doors:

But when the door shuts on us, all that vanishes. The shell–like covering which our souls have excreted to house themselves, to make for themselves a shape distinct from others, is broken, and there is left of all these wrinkles and roughnesses a central oyster of perceptiveness, an enormous eye. How beautiful a street is in winter! It is at once revealed and obscured. Here vaguely one can trace symmetrical straight avenues of doors and windows; here under the lamps are floating islands of pale light through which pass quickly bright men and women, who, for all their poverty and shabbiness, wear a certain look of unreality, an air of triumph, as if they had given life the slip, so that life, deceived of her prey, blunders on without them. But, after all, we are only gliding smoothly on the surface. The eye is not a miner, not a diver, not a seeker after buried treasure. It floats us smoothly down a stream; resting, pausing, the brain sleeps perhaps as it looks. 

—

That is true: to escape is the greatest of pleasures; street haunting in winter the greatest of adventures. Still as we approach our own doorstep again, it is comfortingto feel the old possessions, the old prejudices, fold us round; and the self, which has been blown about at so many street corners, which has battered like a moth at the flame of so many inaccessible lanterns, sheltered and enclosed. Here again is the usual door 

dec 30/RUN

3.1 miles
43rd, north/32nd, east/river road trail, south/42nd, west/edmund, north
29 degrees

My first run since last Sunday, partly due to travel, partly feeling sore. A great winter run. Cold, with layers, but not too cold. And no ice or snow or bad trail conditions. Before we went out for our run, Scott put together his marathon plan for this year — we’ve decided to try again. My goal: to make it to the start line next October, healthy. Should I come up with some sort of a plan? If I did, I imagine it would combine running, walking, and poetry.

As we ran, we talked about how the river road stops being red at certain points where the county or city or state (I can’t remember what Scott said) takes over. In those spots the road is black asphalt. Then I mentioned that we had had a very similar conversation 2 or 3 years ago. Then we talked about time looping and repeating yourself and when it’s ritual, when it’s being stuck in a rut.

10 Things

  1. open, brown river (no ice or snow)
  2. a scratching noise — not roller skier poles but the drum beat on a rap song that 2 white women were blasting as they ran by — wow
  3. one or two patches of ice on the sidewalk by edmund
  4. a runner in a bright orange sweatshirt or jacket, glowing in the gloom
  5. a light grayish-blue sky, everything darker — not feeling like day or night, but some in-between time
  6. a few flurries
  7. pothole 1: what started as a small hole has gotten bigger and deeper every year. 2 years ago they tried to patch it, but it didn’t work. The orange spray paint they used to outline a few years before that has faded, near the oak savanna
  8. pothole 2: at the spot where the bike and walking paths separate, less a pothole, more a deep gash 3 or 4 feet long. Every year they circle it with white spray paint — the shape of paint resembles a tube sock
  9. passing a woman who swung her arm out awkwardly like Dave — wasn’t sure for a minute — could it be Dave? no
  10. looking down at the floodplain forest, pointing out the clear view of the forest floor to Scott. He said if he looked he might faint: vertigo

Winter Song/ Wilfred Owen

The browns, the olives, and the yellows died,
And were swept up to heaven; where they glowed
Each dawn and set of sun till Christmastide,
And when the land lay pale for them, pale-snowed,
Fell back, and down the snow-drifts flamed and flowed.

From off your face, into the winds of winter,
The sun-brown and the summer-gold are blowing;
But they shall gleam with spiritual glinter,
When paler beauty on your brows falls snowing,
And through those snows my looks shall be soft-going.

I like the focus on winter colors in this poem and the idea of snow as flamed and flowing and shift from sun-brown and summer-gold into spiritual glinter and how his looks are soft-going. I might need to use that expression for how I see: soft-going.

dec 22/RUN

5.15 miles
bottom of franklin hill and back
38 degrees / 93% humidity

Misty with drizzle this morning before the run, misty and damp during it. Everything fuzzy and dreamy, muffled by the wet air. Wonderful weather for a run (rereading this bit an hour later, I realize that it might sound sarcastic. It’s not. I love running in the rain and the mist. There was no wind and it wasn’t too cold.) I felt strong and relaxed and glad to be outside moving.

2 Regulars to greet: Daddy Long Legs and Dave, the Daily Walker. Actually, it might have been 3. I’m not positive but I think I exchanged waves with the women I talked to one day who tried to fix me up with another runner — I called her Mrs. Fixer-Upper, or something like that. Anyway, I exchanged good mornings with DDL for the first time. And then Dave wished me a Merry Christmas — you too! Merry Christmas!

Listened to the dripping and the hum of far off traffic as I ran north. Put in an old playlist for the last mile.

a ridiculous performance

Haven’t made note of one of these for some time — just checked and the last time was last December (14th) and I wrote almost the exact same first sentence! Before getting to the performance, here’s something I wrote on 23 june 2020 explaining my use of the phrase:

This idea of a “rather ridiculous performance” is a line from Mary Oliver’s “Invitation”: “I beg of you/do not walk by/without pausing/to attend to/this rather ridiculous performance.” Maybe I’ll try to make a list of the rather ridiculous performances I encounter/witness?

Today’s ridiculous performance was a guy running up the franklin hill backwards. He was part shuffling part skipping part running up it with a hood on. As I ran down, I could see him ahead of me, but I assumed he was running down the hill. I almost ran into him before I realized he didn’t know I was there. Wow — that would feel strange, I think, shuffling backwards up a hill, unable to see anything you were approaching. I’ve heard of people running backwards for training or coming back from an injury. Was that what this person was doing?

10 Things

  1. a thin mist/fog hovering in the air
  2. new graffiti all over one of the franklin bridge support posts
  3. a walker and their dog crossing the river road then taking the steps down to the muddy Winchell Trail
  4. no chain at the top of the old stone steps, blocking the way down to the river — I bet it’s slippery today!
  5. ice on the edges of the river, below, near longfellow flats
  6. no stones stacked on the boulder
  7. all of the benches were empty
  8. halfway down the hill, I noticed some stairs on the other side of the road I’ve never noticed before. Were they leading to the franklin terrace dog park?
  9. June’s white ghost bike was hanging from the trestle
  10. bright car headlights cutting through the foggy mist

seeps

Before the run, I was reading about seeps and springs. Decided to think about them and why I might want to be one as I was running. In particular I was interested in how being a seep is different than becoming a boulder, which I’ve already written about. I recorded my thoughts after running up the franklin hill.

As I ran down the hill, I thought about how gravity pulls water down. A line: no need to navigate. Spilling over, onto, into. Always exceeding. Relentless. Opening up, making room, creating space. Never encased, contained, fully controlled. Slow, steady, drip drip drip. Saturates, permeates, soaks.

The author of article from 1997 I was reading — Along the Great Wall: Mapping the Springs of the Twin Cities — didn’t think too highly of seeps: little, inconsequential, too abundant for mapping. He focused on springs. I like the small, quiet, unassuming nature of seeps. More to think about and push at with that idea.

From a few poems I found after searching for seeps — things that seep: blood, sun, gas, chill, a seeping back in sleep to glorious childhood memories of baseball, water, light, an hour….and this, which made me stop my search so I could post this poem:

Louisiana Line/ Betty Adcock

The wooden scent of wagons,
the sweat of animals—these places
keep everything—breath of the cotton gin,
black damp floors of the icehouse.

Shadows the color of a mirror’s back
break across faces. The luck
is always bad. This light is brittle,
old pale hair kept in a letter.
The wheeze of porch swings and lopped gates
seeps from new mortar.

Wind from an axe that struck wood
a hundred years ago
lifts the thin flags of the town.

I like this idea of the past seeping from/into the present — like the wheezy echo of an old porch swing seeping from a new building.

dec 19/RUN

4 miles
curved railing (north) and back*
30 degrees / feels like 22

Wow, what a beautiful morning for a run. Sunny and clear and cold, but not too cold. So many shadows to admire! My favorite was the first one I noticed — from a slender tree, so thin it looked more like a pencil line. I started noticing the trees by how thick their shadows were. Then, when I reached the river, I moved onto the shadows of fence posts. The split rail fence above the ravine made such crooked shadows — no straight lines where rails were leaning or bent. The street lamps shadows almost looked menacing — so sharp, stretched across the path. My shadow was sharp too — clear and confident. Saw squirrel shadows but no bird shadows.

10 Things (other than shadows)

  1. below in the ravine, the water was frozen
  2. a strange howling call from below at longfellow flats — an animal? or a person pretending to be an animal? I looked, but couldn’t see anyone
  3. in the sun the darting squirrels looked silver or white
  4. a stutter step when I squirrel jumped out at me, then turned back
  5. as I ran south, some white thing out of the corner of my eye kept calling out, notice me! So I did: it was an arch of the lake street bridge
  6. walking below on the winchell trail, I encountered (not for the first time) the trunk of a tree in the middle of the trail — wide and tall — 12 feet? jagged at the top
  7. the knock of a woodpecker somewhere below, closer to the river — not sharp, but soft faint, almost an echo
  8. good morning Dave! / morning Sara!
  9. looking down at the floodplain forest, I could see many fallen trees and branches
  10. nearing the bottom of the hill that rises up and out of the tunnel of trees, I saw the bright, burning light of the river far ahead — I knew it was the river, but imagined it might be sky

I listened to strange howls as I ran north, then put it in Merrily We Roll Along as I ran south to home.

Before turning around, I hiked down to the curved fence above the ravine on the Winchell trail and took a few pictures. Then I stood there, looked down at the river, and felt delighted and satisfied, so glad to have gone out for a run this morning and then stopped to take in this view.

A view of the mississippi river. The top third of the image is just BLUE!--a beautiful blue sky. Below the blue is mostly the light brown of the east bank, then the whiteish-tan of the sandy shore. On the edge between the blue sky and brown branches in the left corner is the tower at Prospect Park--the Witch's Hat, which is called that because it looks like a witch's hat. After the brown of the shoreline, more BLUE!--the river. And, in front of all this, closest to the camera, are a few bare branches. When I look at this picture, I mostly see and think, BLUE! then sandy white then witch's hat.
on the west bank, near franklin ave, mississippi river / 19 dec 2023

I discovered a prose poem this morning that reminds me of my February Feels Like Project. I think it could be inspiration for me as I clean up my draft and try to get it published:

Sunrise, All Day Long/ Kathleen McGookey

Today is wind that smells like mint blowing in from the lake. Today is a paper crane, just folded. Today is a bleached sheet pulled from the linen closet, trailing the delicate scent of green soap. Today is a small brown snail’s pearly trail across the ivy. An eggshell cracked open by raccoon or turtle or fox. Today is a sharpened pencil, a sealed love letter, the antique locket in my mother’s jewelry box. A rectangular pink eraser, straight out of the package. That one black and white bird perched on the sailboat’s mast, preening its glossy tuxedo and singing a boisterous, throaty song.

dec 18/RUN

4.65 miles
minnehaha falls and back
18 degrees / feels like 4
wind: 15 mph

Colder today. Bundled up: purple jacket, green long-sleeved shirt, 2 pairs of black running tights; 2 pairs of black gloves; black hat with ear flaps; gray buff. Sunny. Sharp shadows. At the beginning of the run I had the buff pulled over my mouth to warm my breath. Then, within a mile, I was hot.

Running south I listened to kids at the playground — are the Minnehaha Academy kids still in school this week? — and the voice in my head singing “Old Friends” from the new version of Merrily We Roll Along. Can’t get that song out of my head! On the way back, after stopping at my favorite spot, I put in the soundtrack and listened to Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez sing it, and some of the other songs from the musical. I’d love to see this one on Broadway — just checked and it’s there through July 7th. Would it even be possible to get tickets?

10 Things

  1. cold wind in my face, from most directions
  2. hot sun on my face, once or twice
  3. the river burning such a bright white — no ice on it today
  4. a dry, clear, cold path
  5. the view just past the oak savanna, as the hills part and open to the river — wow! so clear and calm and beautiful
  6. the falls were louder this morning
  7. a kid, an adult, and a dog — walking around the falls
  8. the creek water was filled with bits of ice, foam, and orange leaves
  9. the asphalt on the shared path that travels under the ford bridge is in bad shape — it’s crumbling and has several deep, long holes
  10. there’s a path that cuts down from the 44th street parking lot, bypassing the overlook and the steps. For most of the year it’s hidden by leaves or snow, today I could see it clearly. I almost turned and took it — why didn’t I?

When I stopped at my favorite spot, I also took some video of the falls:

minnehaha falls / 18 dec / less ice, more falling water

dec 15/RUN

7.25 miles
lake nokomis and back
41 degrees

Ran to Lake Nokomis and back — a December goal achieved! A few weeks ago, I told Scott that I wanted to do that at least once before the end of 2023. Today was a great day to do it. Overcast, mild, hardly any wind. Everything brown and orange and calm. I felt relaxed and strong and only a little sore in my left hip.

Ran above the river, past the falls, over the mustache and duck bridges, by Minnehaha creek and Lake Hiawatha, then to the big beach at Lake Nokomis. I ran down the sidewalk that leads to the lifeguard stand and the water — the sidewalk I often take in the summer just before starting open swim. I thought about summer and swimming, then took this video:

Lake Nokomis / 15 dec 2023 / above the frame, a bird was flying

Ran on Minnehaha Parkway on the way back.

10 Things

  1. several spots in the split rail fence where the railing was bent or leaning or broken
  2. headlights cutting through the pale gray sky
  3. people walking below me on the Winchell Trail
  4. kids laughing on a playground*
  5. the parking lot at the falls had a few more cars in it then earlier in the week
  6. the creek was half frozen — thin sheets of ice everywhere
  7. a woman called out to a dog — liam or sam, I think? — or was she calling out to me, ma’am?
  8. a young girl testing out the thin ice on the edge of the lake — her name was Aubrey — I know this because a woman kept calling out Aubrey! Aubrey! No, don’t! and then, Let’s go Aubrey. I need to eat!
  9. the sidewalk was wet — in some spots, slick
  10. running north on the river road trail, in the groove, an older man on a bike called out, You’re a running machine! I was so surprised I snorted in response

*as I listened to the kids, I thought about how this sound doesn’t really change. Over the years, it comes from different kids, but the sound is the same. Season after season, year after year.

before the run

I’m trying to stop working on my poem about haunting the gorge, but I keep returning to it and just as I believe I have found the way in, another door opens, leading me in a different direction. When do you follow those doors and when do you stop? I worry that I’ll just keep wandering and never settle on/into anything. As I write this, I’m realizing that the question of when to keep moving and when to stop are a central theme of the poem. Here’s a bit of the poem that I wrote the other day that sums it up:

Stone is
satisfied
water
wants to be
somewhere
else. Sometimes
I am
water when
I want
to be stone
sometimes
I am stone
when I
need to be
water.

What to do with all of this? Maybe a run will help…

during the run

I kept returning to these questions of staying and leaving, moving and standing still. At one point, I started thinking about how nothing really stands still, the movement just happens at different speeds/paces/directions, in different scales of time. I’m interested in slow time, directionless time, time that seems to repeat, drip.

Then I thought about the value of solid (or stable or slow moving) forms in which to put my words. These forms aren’t forever fixed, but are solid enough to hold those words, to shape them into something meaningful.

after the run

Not sure what to do with all of this, but forms I’m thinking about: running form — the running body, breaths, feet; boulders; dripping, seeping, sloping water

Water! Now I thinking about Bruce Lee’s poem, be water my friend:

Empty your mind. Be
formless shapeless
like water 
now you put 
water into a cup
it becomes the cup you put
water into a bottle
it becomes the bottle you put 
it into a tea pot
it becomes the tea pot
now water can flow or it can
craaaaasshh
be water my friend

And all the different types of water I encountered on my run: river, dripping ravine, falls, creek, weir, lake, puddle, ice. Different forms with different properties — some flow, some stay

And also Marie Howe’s lines about learning from the lake in “From Nowhere”:

 think the sea is a useless teacher, pitching and falling
no matter the weather, when our lives are rather lakes

unlocking in a constant and bewildering spring.

And now I’m remembering some lines from a draft of my poem, “Afterglow”:

No longer
wanting to be water —
formless fluid — but 
the land that contains 
it. Solid defined
giving shape to the flow.

And finally, it’s time to post a poem I read from Gary Snyder in his collection, Riprap:

Thin Ice/ Gary Snyder

Walking in February
A warm day after a long freeze
On an old logging road
Below Sumas Mountain
Cut a walking stick of alder,
Looked down through clouds
On wet fields of the Nooksack—
And stepped on the ice
Of a frozen pool across the road.
It creaked
The white air under
Sprang away, long cracks
Shot out in the black,
My cleated mountain boots
Slipped on the hard slick
—like thin ice—the sudden
Feel of an old phrase made real—
Instant of frozen leaf,
Icewater, and staff in hand.
“Like walking on thin ice—”
I yelled back to a friend,
It broke and I dropped
Eight inches in

note: I just checked and I might have missed something, but I think the last time I ran over 7 miles was on September 21, 2021. I ran 7.2 miles to the bohemian flats. And here’s something interesting: I posted a draft, just finished, of “Afterglow,” with the lines mentioned above included for the first time. Strange how that works.

dec 13/RUN

4.5 miles
john stevens house and back
38 degrees

Sunny and warmer! Shadows! Clear, dry paths! A great afternoon run, even if my left IT band started hurting…again. I was able to run on all of the walking paths, even when they split off from the bike path.

Listened to kids, cars, chainsaws, and some guy with a DEEP voice as I ran to the Steven’s house and The Wiz on the way back.

10 Things

  1. the light was lower — it felt later than 2:30*
  2. a walker with a big white dog
  3. the falls seemed to be rushing more than on Monday
  4. a sour sewer smell near the John Steven’s house
  5. kids yelling and laughing on the playground
  6. a bird flying low in the sky, off to my side, almost looking like a fluttering leaf
  7. the soft whoosh of the light rail nearing the station
  8. the bells ringing as it left the station
  9. my feet feeling strange, awkward until I warmed up
  10. the buzz of a chainsaw echoing across the gorge

*the light reminded me of the line from ED:

There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons – 

But this light wasn’t oppressive. It was warm and welcoming.

I’m continuing to plug away at my haunts poem, even though I was feeling burned out yesterday. I decided to read Lorine Niedecker’s “Lake Superior” and the translator’s afterword for Perec’s How to Exhaust a Place. It helped and I think I had a break through this morning. Now I’m looking to Sarah Manguso’s Ongoingness and 300 Arguments for inspiration. My focus: restlessness and stone and water. And, 2 mantras: 1. let it go and 2. condense! condense! condense!

dec 11/RUN

4.5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
25 degrees
50% snow and ice covered

Cold air! So wonderful to breathe in, to make me feel a little dazed and disconnected. More gloomy white sky. Flurries on my face. Listened to a few birds, the kids on the playground, and the rushing water at the falls on the way there, then Olivia Rodrigo on the way back.

10 Things

  1. the strong smell of weed from behind me — no one in sight, then an old white van with a ladder on the back drove by
  2. much of the walking path was covered in a thin layer of snow/ice — so thin that the dark pavement was still visible, making the snow look light gray
  3. a leaning split rail fence, bent in the middle — not quite broken but almost
  4. a walker with two dogs walking down the steepish trail just past the double bridge — was it icy?
  5. someone in a bright yellow puffer jacket walking with a dog on the winchell trail — they had just crested the short, steep hill right before folwell
  6. the tinny recording of the train bell echoing from across Hiawatha to the falls
  7. the heavy thud of my feet on the cold cobblestones in the park
  8. a walker with a dog emerging from the steps that lead down to the bottom of the falls. As I watched they crossed the bridge
  9. running up the hill at the edge of the park near the sledding hill, remembering my run here a month ago when I imagined it being covered in snow
  10. missing: a view of the river, turkeys, fat tires, orange, red

Stopped at my favorite falls viewing spot and recorded the bridge and the water falling:

minnehaha falls, still falling / 11 dec 2023

At one point on my run back, I suddenly felt a beautiful ache of emotion and thought: tender. Yes, I need to include a few lines in my haunts poem about feeling tender as I run — maybe in contrast with tough and the callouses I mentioned last week (6 dec 2023)?

dec 8/RUN

3.5 miles
trestle turn around
42 degrees

It didn’t feel as warm as it was because of the wind and the clouds. The sky, smudged white. Gloomy. Clear paths with a few chunks of ice still sticking around. How did they not melt yesterday when it was 49 degrees and sunny? A good run, even if my left IT band was sore.

IT doesn’t stand for iliotibial, it stands for:

  • Itchy Teeth
  • Irksome Toes
  • Incandescent Tonsils
  • Infatuated Trapezoids
  • Indigo Toenails (from Scott)
  • Inconceivable Tracheas (from RJP)

10 Things

  1. a noisy car speeding down the river road — don’t remember the color of the type of car or who was driving it, just remember that it was LOUD and FAST
  2. chick a dee dee dee dee
  3. the floodplain forest was roomy and deep brown and open to the river
  4. click click clack — roller skiers hitting their poles on the path
  5. bright headlights cutting through the tree trunks on the other side of the ravine
  6. can’t remember the color of the river — probably pale brown or gray or brown — just that it was soothing (looked at my video: blueish white)
  7. at the start of the run, the pavement was wet — why? melted snow?
  8. a regular — Santa Claus! we raised our hands in greeting
  9. overdressed — took off my orange sweatshirt at the turn around
  10. a mom on roller skis to her kids, also on roller skis — we’re almost there! I’m assuming she meant the big franklin hill

Listened to my breath, my striking feet, the cars driving by as I ran north. Put in a Billie Eilish playlist running back south.

Before turning around, I took some video at a favorite spot: the curved fence on the Winchell Trail before Franklin:

Not yet winter by the gorge. Listen to the sirens on the other side sing with the chickadees and the cars.

After I finished running, I recalled a line I had composed while running for a poem I’m working on about the bells of St. Thomas:

Have others
outside
forgotten
those bells? 
Or do they
hear them 
ringing still?

I like the double meaning of still here — both: continuing to ring and ringing until they become still/stop. I have to sit with it longer, but I think I’d like ring instead of ringing, but it doesn’t fit the 3/2 form.

As I write this I’m remembering another thought I had: getting rid of all of the longer poems that begin with I — I go to the gorge, I sync up my steps, I want connection, I orbit the gorge, etc. Those are the ghosts that haunt this Haunts poem — they are the traces/residue/palimpsest that is still there, but not fully. I think this makes sense to me, but I’m not sure if I can remove all of those words that I love and have spent so much time with…yet.

dec 6/RUN

4 miles
minnehaha falls and back
37 degrees

Warmer today. Almost all of the snow has melted. Sunny, bright, shadows. Chirping birds, sparkling water, shimmering sidewalks — melted snow illuminated by sun. I went out feeling a bit overwhelmed, needing a run. It worked. By the end of the run I felt so much better.

I listened to the world around me as I ran to the falls: the birds, kids on the playground, cars whooshing by, the gushing falls. When I turned around, I put in a Billie Eilish playlist on the way back.

At the falls, I stopped at the overlook right beside the falls:

minnehaha falls / 6 dec 2023

10 Things

  1. wet path, shimmering — is it just water, or is it super slick ice?
  2. most of the snow gone, only little ridges on the edges of the trail
  3. empty, open, iceless river
  4. more darting squirrels
  5. encountering a woman in pink running shoes twice
  6. the bells from the light rail ringing and dinging from across the road
  7. my shadow — sharp — running beside me
  8. a runner in a bright blue jacket
  9. an empty parking lot at the falls
  10. the potholes on the path were easier to see because they were filled in with snow while the rest of the path was bare

Thinking about the gorge and WPA walls and riprap and Gary Snyder:

Riprap/ Gary Snyder

Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way,
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles—
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.

I mention the limestone walls made by the WPA in the 30s and 40s in my poem. I’d like to expand on them just a little more. Each rock a word — something there to build on, I think.

riprap: loose stones used to form a foundation

dec 5/RUN

4.5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
32 degrees
10% snow-covered

It snowed last night. Less than an inch? Enough to cover everything, making it look like winter, but not enough to cause any problems running on the path. Wonderful! I love winter running. I started out a little cold, with my hood up against the wind, but ended over-heated: lots of sweat and a flushed face. My right IT band hurt a little, but not enough to end the run. I did stop at the halfway point — my favorite spot near “The Song of Hiatwatha,” admiring the falls from a distance. I took some video:

minnehaha falls / 5 dec 2023

video: Minnehaha Creek rushing over the limestone ledge, frozen water on either side of the rushing water, a bridge above, a bridge below.

10 Things

  1. the river: brownish-gray, flat, empty
  2. caw caw caw
  3. the snow is soft and not slick or clumpy, easy to run over
  4. a path winding through the savanna revealed by settled snow
  5. a leaning tree branch, dusted with snow. The snow making visible the trunks texture
  6. rustling in the brush — a squirrel
  7. the voices of kids laughing on the playground
  8. running near the overlook of the falls, not stopping to see the water, just hearing it rushing over the limestone
  9. beep beep beep beep beep beep then a few beats of silence on repeat — a service truck near the roundabout
  10. rabbit footprints all over my driveway — such big footprints!

before the run

This morning, while doing the dishes, I began listening to Chris Dombrowski’s The River You Touch. Here are a few passages I’d like to remember:

What does a mindful, sustainable inhabitance on this small planet look like in the Anthropocene? is no longer an academic question but rather a necessary qualifier to each step we take. For answers, we who have proven ourselves such untrustworthy stewards of our home might look to what Barry Lope called “myriad enduring relationships of the landscape,” to our predecessors, in other words, whose voices are the bells that must sound before any gritty ceremony of community can truly being.

The River We Touch/ Chris Dombrowski

bells — I like this idea of bells as signaling the start of a ceremony. Each loop around the gorge, or run beside the gorge is the start of a ritual, a ceremony, both sacred and mundane. What else do bells signal? I want to review my notes and weave other meanings into my poem.

“listening,” refers to direct contact, engagement, what the forager Jenna Rozelle calls the “primacy of immediate experience.” Callouses on palms formed by friction between human skin and oar handle. Shoulder muscles straining to pull oar blade through current, the oar stroke negotiating with the wave train’s brute liquid force.

The River We Touch/ Chris Dombrowski

The mention of callouses reminds me of Thoreau and his essay on walking:

Living much out of doors, in the sun and wind, will no doubt produce a certain roughness of character—will cause a thicker cuticle to grow over some of the finer qualities of our nature, as on the face and hands, or as severe manual labor robs the hands of some of their delicacy of touch. So staying in the house, on the other hand, may produce a softness and smoothness, not to say thinness of skin, accompanied by an increased sensibility to certain impressions. Perhaps we should be more susceptible to some influences important to our intellectual and moral growth, if the sun had shone and the wind blown on us a little less; and no doubt it is a nice matter to proportion rightly the thick and thin skin. But methinks that is a scurf that will fall off fast enough—that the natural remedy is to be found in the proportion which the night bears to the day, the winter to the summer, thought to experience. There will be so much the more air and sunshine in our thoughts. The callous palms of the laborer are conversant with finer tissues of self-respect and heroism, whose touch thrills the heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus of experience.

physical dialogue (contact…encounter between feet and land)…sensorial empathy

The faculty of wonder—which, in this context, is simply the unsentimental ability to identify with astonishment the earth and its inhabitants as relational—is diminishing as quickly as any endangered species. If it vanishes as an inevitable byproduct of decreased direct encounters with the physical world, so, too, may go the instinct to protect the very places that sustain us.

Concluding a story about kayaking with his son, encountering a sea otter, attempting to capture the moment with his phone and then dropping the phone in the ocean, Dombrowski writes:

I scanned our ambit for further sign of the otter, weighing the value of what I’d beamed in on 4G versus the salt drying on the hand Luca had dragged through the water. I sensed the latter would form a more lasting kind of knowing.

The River We Touch/ Chris Dombrowski

Before heading out for my run, I wanted to think about some of these ideas, especially: touch, physical dialogue, and sensorial empathy.

during the run

I recall thinking about my feet and rough ground and how much I enjoy feeling the ground as I move. The snow today was fun to run over/through. It wasn’t hard or crusty or sharp or too soft or thick or soggy or slick. It felt almost like running over a carpet of grass. A nice break from the hard asphalt. I also thought about breath and air and how much they are a part of touching/experiencing the gorge.

Near the end of my run, a song came up on my playlist: Breathe (2 AM)/ Anna Nalick. I’ve had it on a running playlist for over a decade now. As she sang, breathe, just breathe, I breathed. Maybe more than feet, lungs and breathing and breath have been central to my writing on this log.

I also thought about the gorge as an emptiness, a void, mystery, the ineffable/inaccessible, that I return to when I run because I want to encounter this void. I want to face the mystery.

after the run

Sitting at my desk now, I’m hungry. After I eat, I’d like to think more about the Thoreau quote and feet and callouses and the physical impact of running around the gorge as part of this haunting experience.

dec 3/RUN

4 miles
marshall loop (to cleveland)
34 degrees

Humid, hazy. Smells like snow even though no snow is in the forecast. The light strange. Another good run. I felt strong and comfortable and relaxed. Ran through the neighborhood to lake street then over the bridge and up marshall to cleveland. I haven’t done a marshall loop since October?

After I finished, as I walked home, I pulled out my phone and recorded 10 things I noticed:

10 Things

  1. a person walking out to their car. I could see in my peripheral vision that their jacket was blue, but when I looked at them through my central vision, the jacket looked grayish-white. Looked again through my peripheral, blue. Then straight: white
  2. running up the marshall hill: a strange green thing in the grass — a sculpture? no a gardening tool
  3. across the street as I walk home: one dog is pooping and the other dog’s name is Rosie
  4. running across the lake street bridge, the water was perfectly still and flat and brown and empty
  5. sprinting on summit to make the light — I made it
  6. after sprinting, my legs felt great and relaxed
  7. hearing the bells of St. Thomas near the beginning of my run
  8. running by a house I walk by often, seeing the door looking different — a new color? orange? have they painted their house or is the light just weird for me today?
  9. no bells heard when I was running by St. Thomas
  10. running down a hill to below the marshall/lake street bridge, looking at how the bridge was reflected in the still water, the arch smiling

Here’s a wonderful poem I discovered the other day. I love Larkin’s reading of it — such gentle, beautiful rhymes.

An Arundel Tomb/ Philip Larkin

Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd—
The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.

They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor’s sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.

They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they

Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the glass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,

Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

dec 1/RUN

3.6 miles
trestle turn around
27 degrees

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

  1. running above the floodplain forest: brown and open and bottomless, brown leaves blending in with brown trunks
  2. most of the steps down to the Winchell Trail are closed off with a chain, but not the old stone steps — why not?
  3. the stretch of river just north of longfellow flats was half frozen
  4. 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
  5. steady streams of cars at different spots on the river road
  6. 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?
  7. more darting squirrels
  8. 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?
  9. 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
  10. 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.

nov 30/RUN

5 miles
veterans’ home loop
32 degrees

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

  1. kids at recess, playing on the playground at minnehaha academy: scattered voices laughing, yelling
  2. some sort of chirping bird — not a cardinal, a robin? finch?
  3. the caw caw of a crow, down in the gorge
  4. the gushing falls — steadily falling creek water
  5. rustling in the leaves, 1: a squirrel
  6. rustling in the leaves, 2: a chipmunk or a bird
  7. rustling in the leaves, 3: a person walking below me on the Winchell Trail
  8. honking geese
  9. a chain link fence rattling — someone playing disc golf near Waban
  10. 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:

A view from above of the Mississippi gorge and river. Just to the right of center in the image a thick brown tree trunk stands -- well, not that thick, but much thicker than the other trunks surrounding it. To me, this trunk looks like a tall person, with a long neck and a head that's just off the edge of the top of the frame. They have one arm (which is actually a bare branch) that extends up and across and then off the top of the frame. This arm is bent which creates the illusion of an elbow, an armpit, and a torso. Below the tree are dead leaves, light brown, and beyond the tree is a blue river and then a brown bank.
a tree with river gorge / 30 nov 2023

nov 25/RUN

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

  1. ice on the seeps, 1: big columns of ice streaking the limestone
  2. 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
  3. a few scattered chunks of ice on the river
  4. more bright green leaves still on some trees
  5. a new apartment building that looked like it was made out of limestone, but was probably mostly concrete with a thin veneer of limestone
  6. ducks! in the river, bobbing up, showing their butts
  7. geese! in the river, too far away for me to see, loud honks
  8. roller skiers, pt 1 — a whole crew of a dozen of more, heading south on the trail
  9. roller skiers, pt 2 — bright pink jackets on 2, yellow on another, one in black and white
  10. roller skiers, pt 3 — click clack scrape echoing off of the bridge
  11. 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:

punctum/ Teja Sudhakar

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 /

nov 22/RUN

5.4 miles
ford loop
31 degrees

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):

My view from the overlook at the civil war monument. From back to front: sky, lake street bridge, west river bluff, river, bare tree branches, cliff, a shadow of me taking this picture, dirt
view of my shadow/river/bridge / 22 nov 2023

10 Things

  1. water dripping at shadow falls — not quite rushing or gushing, but close
  2. little white caps on the water from the wind
  3. a bird calling out repeatedly, sounding like a car alarm — must have been a cardinal, right?
  4. even less leaves on the trees than last week, although there are still stretches of bright green
  5. one runner passing me slowly, gradually
  6. another running zooming past me up the hill
  7. the satisfying feeling of sandy grit crunching under my feet as I ran on the dirt rail next to the paved path
  8. on the St. Paul side most of the benches have plaques embedded in the concrete, none of them do on the Minneapolis side
  9. spotting a parked car, glowing in the sun on the west side of the river as I ran on the east side
  10. 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

A plaque embedded in concrete. It reads: "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.

nov 20/RUN

6.2 miles
franklin loop + extra*
40 degrees

*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 near a bench. It reads: In Loving Memory of Jeffrey Peter Hanson. "Oh what I would say to you again" from Losing a Year
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

  1. the river is higher — the water has spilled over into the floodplain on the spot below 31st
  2. jingle jingle jingle a dog collar making noise below me on the Winchell Trail
  3. clear open views everywhere to the other side — almost all the leaves are gone!
  4. one tree still full of leaves — the leaves were browned but so light they almost looked silver
  5. a few other trees on the east side still holding onto bright green leaves
  6. encountered several U of M students with backpacks walking over to campus
  7. a sign on the bridge — End the Occupation
  8. 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
  9. the white sands beach was glowing white from across the river
  10. 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?
  11. on the bridge, looked up in the sky and stopped: 3 soaring birds, high in the sky — eagles? hawks? geese? I couldn’t tell

nov 18/RUN

4 miles
hidden falls to crosby farms and back
37 degrees

Just like yesterday, another beautiful morning! Sunny, calm, not too cold. Sharp shadows, cloudless blue sky. Today’s route started and ended at the Hidden Falls parking lot, right next to the sunlit river. So wonderful! Ran with Scott and talked about Amy Winehouse, NCAA cross country races, lurking shadows, and why there was a car driving on the no vehicle path — lost golden retriever. As we neared Crosby Falls, we ran over a root that was embedded in the path and looked like a snake. Very cool! Scott took a picture of it:

a cracked sidewalk with a tree root winding through it, looking like a snake
Scott’s picture of a root in the paved path / near Crosby Farms

10 Things

  1. chirping birds, shrieking squirrels
  2. shadows, 1: ours, sharp, beside us then in front of us
  3. shadows, 2: the trees, casting long lines across the paved path
  4. shadows, 3: the trees on the water, making the bright blue water look dark brown
  5. question pondered: what’s the difference between a shadow and a reflection — Scott’s answer: the position of the light
  6. a walker in a bright pink jacket
  7. the sandstone/limestone bluff — high and looming — on one side of us
  8. graffiti spray painted on a barricade in the parking lot, uh oh stinky
  9. smoke from a campfire on other side of a little lake near Crosby Farms
  10. running up a short, step hill on the tips of my toes and remembering when I tried (and failed) to bike up it a few years ago without shifting gears

nov 17/RUN

3.2 miles
trestle turn around
36 degrees

Yes! A near perfect morning for a run. Sunny, still, cool but not cold. Deep blue sky, sharp shadows. Relaxed hips, knees, shoulders. A moment to remember and return to when needed. So calm, happy, not anxious. Walking back after I was done, I heard a knock so I stopped and looked up to the top of a tree — a woodpecker! And I could see it! I watched for a few seconds then listened deeper: another chirping bird, leaves rustling underfoot, a leaf blower.

10 Things

  1. good morning Dave!
  2. the floodplain forest is bare and a beautiful, soothing brown
  3. with everything so bare and exposed because of the lack of leaves, I thought about how it all looks bigger (wider, more open) and smaller (no mystery, all out in the open) at the same time
  4. glancing down at white Minneapolis rowing club building, it looked like it was a shimmering mirage in the sun
  5. almost to the trestle — I could see it through the bare trees, stretching across the water. It looked so far away, even though I was almost there
  6. took the recently redone steps just north of the trestle down for a better view of the water — the river was such a deep, dark blue — but a dark blue that was still clearly blue and not black (which is what navy looks like to me)
  7. on those same steps: my shadow ahead of me — hi friend!
  8. another shadow: a runner approaching me from behind. I could hear her slowly gaining on me, then suddenly her shadow appeared, almost lurking behind me for a moment
  9. running on the sandy, gritty dirt just off the edge of the trail
  10. smelling breakfast — can’t remember what type of breakfast, just breakfast — wafting down from longfellow grill

As I was running on the dirt trail just next to the paved path, I had a thought about my haunts poem and the recent ones I’ve added about the trails. So far I have three — the dirt trail on the grassy boulevard, the official paved trail, and Winchell. I think I should add this one, and maybe more. I could sprinkle them throughout the poem, or just add that one in with the others, near the beginning?

I was planning to run a little longer and listen to a playlist for the second half, but a mile into my run I realized that I had forgotten my phone. That has happened maybe once or twice ever, in all of the years I’ve been running. Today, I didn’t care, but still didn’t want to run too long without it, especially since I hadn’t told Scott which way I was running.

nov 16/RUN

5.4 miles
ford loop
63 degrees
wind: 19mph

Another windy day. I had to hold onto my cap several times so it wouldn’t fly off. Running east on the lake street bridge, I put my hood so my cap wouldn’t fall off. Running west over the ford bridge, I took the cap off and held it in my hands. The wind made it difficult, more draining. Is that why my legs feel so sore?

10 Things

  1. ridges and white caps in the blue water, from the wind
  2. kids at the church daycare, at the far end of the fenced-in playground. Running by I could hear their tiny, sweet voices plotting something
  3. more filled benches than usual along the route, including one with a person sitting and a stroller behind it
  4. in the neighborhood: knocks on the roof — not a woodpecker, but roofers … or was it a woodpecker?
  5. running straight into the wind, wondering if would push me up against the railing (not quite)
  6. my shadow down in the ravine near shadow falls — lucky shadow, sheltered from the wind
  7. everywhere hazy — it might have been my vision, but I think it was dust stirred up by the wind. Yuck!
  8. running north, at the end, feeling the wind pushing me, but not in a helpful way
  9. the wind didn’t rush or roar, it just pushed and pulled
  10. a walker, walking in the middle of the path, blasting talk radio

I stopped on the double bridge to take a picture of the ravine and to put in my headphones:

My view from the bridge of some bare-branched trees. Everything mostly brown, with a few streaks of white (or gray?) peeking through. The white is the water, or is it the sky? Difficult to tell. Below the frame of this imagine (just out of the picture), is a branch with green leaves, swaying in the wind. Also out of the frame is a walker with a dog, walking by. I didn't notice them until they passed by and crossed my periphery.
a warm, windy November day / 16 nov 2023

today’s view out my window

It’s snowing leaves. Mostly they are drifting down slowly, one after the other. Sometimes at a distance, occasionally almost on my window screen. My neighbor’s yard is covered with them, a dead leaf carpet. Yesterday, as Scott and I cleared out our leaves we could see that the neighbor’s tree was still full of leaves. I wondered what would happen when the wind came back. Today I found out.

Also, encountered this interesting (and unsettling) article about the effects of climate crisis on Japanese poets who write haikus: Japan’s haiku poets lost for words as climate crisis disrupts seasons

nov 14/RUN

3 miles
under ford bridge and back
55 degrees
wind: 20mph

Almost too warm and definitely too windy. The wind doesn’t bother me like it used to, but this wind was tough. I ran straight into it heading south. One nice thing: it pushed me along in the second half. I wore shorts and by the end of my run I had taken off my sweatshirt and pushed up my short sleeves. Bare legs and bare arms in the middle of November. Strange and disorienting.

10 Wind Things

  1. leaf shards in my eyes
  2. holding onto my hat so it wouldn’t blow away
  3. being pushed to the edge of the trail
  4. a roar in my ears
  5. swirling leaves above me, below me, to the side of me
  6. squaring my shoulders, leaning in as the wind pushed me back
  7. a sudden gust from the side
  8. knocking my ankles together
  9. shaking, swaying trees
  10. more sizzle than howl

I didn’t hear any geese or notice what the wind was doing to the river. I might have seen my shadow; I almost remember. Encountered some other runners, bikers, and a roller skier.

I listened to the wind until I reached the ford bridge, then I stopped and put in an old playlist: “Landslide,” “Cheap Thrills,” “Sorry,” and “Love is a Battlefield.”

I came across Wendy Xu’s “Absolute Variations” today and I wanted to make note of the first few lines. What a way to start a poem!

The first time I read a line by John Ashbery
was in a little café in Massachusetts, from left to right
There it was written across my friend’s collarbone
It felt right to be there with someone
who would show me something like that
when we had never met before

I appreciate how she never explicitly names the Ashbery lines. I suppose if you know a lot of Ashbery’s poems, it’s obvious, but I don’t, so it isn’t to me. But that’s okay; it could be fun trying to find them, and it’s not necessary to know them to enjoy the poem. I think her refusal to be explicit here is an example of trusting the reader to figure it out. I like that.

nov 13/RUN

5 miles
veterans’ home loop
42 degrees

What a day! Sunny and calm and beautiful. I overdressed — didn’t need the gloves or the headband, maybe should’ve worn a lighter sweatshirt? Ran south to the falls, over the creek, behind John Steven’s house, over the creek again, to the grounds of the Veterans’ home, down the hill to the locks and dam no. 1, north on the river road, past the welcoming oaks, down through the tunnel of trees, across to Edmund, then done. Ran 5 miles without stopping. I didn’t even stop while taking off my sweatshirt and wrapping it around my waist. It would have been smart to stop for that, but I wanted to keep moving, so I did, and probably looked ridiculous.

10 Things

  1. chirp chirp chirp
  2. my ponytail swishing and hitting my shoulder
  3. my shadow — sharp and straight and solid
  4. a group of people — was it kids and a teacher, or all adults? I’m not sure — standng silently on the grass between Minnehaha Academy and Becketwood
  5. shimmering scattering glowing river water
  6. rushing gushing falls
  7. the fake bells from the light rail sounding like the beginning of an ABBA song (at least to me) — I thought about listening to an ABBA playlist on my run back, but I forgot
  8. running over the bridge that leads to the Veterans’ home, hearing the creek rushing way below me
  9. encountering a few walkers — a short woman, later a tall man — as I ran down the steep hill to locks and dam no. 1
  10. 4 stones stacked on the ancient boulder

As I ran down a hill into Minnehaha Park, I tried to remember the sun and the warmth and the bare ground, and thought about how this same path will be cold and snow-covered within a month.

Before my run, I thought about how before works in my Haunts poem and revisited a wonderful poem, “Transubstantiation,” that plays with befores and afters. I wanted to explore the idea of after while I ran — what comes before, what after? But I realized as I moved that I am most interested in playing around with the before, creating layers of befores that don’t follow a linear progression, but circle around unresolved. I held onto as many of my thought as I can, then recorded them into my phone once my run was done.

notes / 13 nov 2023

transcript: November 13, 2023. Just finished a 5 mile run and while I was running I was thinking about girl ghost and gorge and befores and how I’m not interested in doing afters, I’m interested in circling around these befores. Not in a linear way, but a circular way. I’ll do another one that is before there was gorge, there was girl. That one will be about me before I started paying attention, before I started running by the gorge, before this practice. Then there will be one that’s before there was girl, there was ghost. This one will involve more of my mom as a ghost. I’m interested in playing around with the befores and making it disorienting; there’s no real origin point. It’s circular and repeats itself, phrases repeat themselves.

repetition: chiasmus and chanting

Thinking more about the circularity of my befores and the chant-like repetition of girl ghost gorge / ghost girl gorge / gorge ghost girl. Before my run, during my morning ritual of coffee and poetry, I encountered Jane Huffman’s poem, “The Rest” and her discussion/explanation of it in, “Backwashes and Eddies: Jane Huffman on “The Rest”“. She mentions the chiasmus, which I had to look up to remember what it meant:

Repetition of any group of verse elements (including rhyme and grammatical structure) in reverse order, such as the rhyme scheme ABBA. Examples can be found in Biblical scripture (“But many that are first / Shall be last, / And many that are last / Shall be first”; Matthew 19:30). See also John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”).

glossary term, Poetry Foundation

Here’s how Huffman describes her use of it in “The Rest”:

Cut red / flowers hung in pink water.
                Cut pink flowers hung in red water.
                Cut red water hung in pink flowers.
                Cut pink water hung in red flowers.

The poem operates in reversals, in mirror images, in symmetries: “Cut [pink or red] [flowers or water] hung in [pink or red] [flowers or water].”

About the water and flowers, Huffman also says this:

Indeed, “The Rest” refuses to move on. It cannot. It is obsessive, recalibrating the relationship between “flowers” and “water” until its options are exhausted. Exhaustion is a teleology of sickness. One cough anticipates the next.

“The Rest” is about her frequent bouts with bronchitis and Huffman uses repetion, especially the chiasmus, for several reasons:

  1. the bilateral symmetry of her lungs — inhale/exhale left lung/right lung
  2. stagnation / the stasis of the bedridden body / back and forth / refusing to move on (the backwashes and eddies)
  3. seeks to capture the banality of the body — daily routine
  4. imperfect — not exactly the same, repetition with variation

poetic forms that use repetition in this way: villanelle, ghazal, duplex, pantoum

Huffman argues that her repetition of the flowers and the water give the poem its emotional thrust. I’m not sure what I want to do with these ideas, but I can feel them informing my choices about how to use repetition in this poem. One idea: maybe my 3/2 form could involve inverted repetition at some points?

Now moving on to chants, after a quick search, I found this essay: Learning the Chant Poem.

repetition: for meaning, memory, magic, music
to only repeat is boring
the best chant poems are expansive
repetition is important, but so is chaos/wildness

One key: it’s okay to use some nonsense words

an hour, or so, later: I’m returning to this entry because I want to make note of how Huffman’s poem has influenced/inspired me. In particular, I was thinking about her formula and the variations she created to play with the repetition, unsettling it and giving it movement and an emotional punch:

Cut [pink or red] [flowers or water] hung in [pink or red] [flowers or water].

After a few minutes of playing around with the ideas, my own formula emerged:

Before [girl, ghost, or gorge], [girl, ghost, or gorge]: or .
[2 beat word — concise and expansive].

Here’s one that I came up with the I’ll put right before the section of the poem about wanting to run with my mom:

Before girl, ghost.
Cancer.
Terminal.
Before ghost, girl:
intact.

Ooo, I like this! I hope it’s an idea that sticks.

nov 11/RUN

5.25 miles
fort snelling loop*
36 degrees
snow flurries

*a new loop! Started at the Hidden Falls parking lot in St. Paul and ran south to some steps just before the confluence. Over a bridge to Fort Snelling. Through Fort Snelling, Coldwater Springs, the Minnehaha dog park, the Veterans’ Home. Over the ford bridge and back to the river trail.

A wonderful run with Scott! A new loop to add into the mix. From our house, this loop is about 7.5-8 miles. Not too bad. So many wonderful views of the rivers — Mississippi and Minnesota. Such variety in surfaces and landscapes! Asphalt, concrete, crushed limestone, grass, dirt — soft and hard, dead leaves. Over bridges, above ravines, beside old military barracks and frequently travelled highways, through beloved parks, around disc golf courses. Under trees, next to freaky looking bushes with no leaves but dark pinecones, through tall grass, up steep steps with special tracks for rolling bikes down.

Not too long after this run, we drove down to St. Peter to hear FWA’s fall concert. I didn’t have time to finish and post this entry. I’m finishing it on Sunday morning. Can I remember 10 things from yesterday’s run?

10 Things

  1. the river (mississippi) stretching north — a clear, unobstructed view from above — this stretch near hidden falls in st. paul has the best views of the river
  2. so many glowing green leaves on the trees
  3. Scott ranting about Elon Musk and his latest attempts to destroy electric cars
  4. the strange (and a little irritating) visual effect of running next to a tall railing as the light pulsed through the slats — a constant flash flash flash flash
  5. running right by the barracks at Fort Snelling and feeling the misery of it — the cold quarters, especially in the winter, and this site as concentration camp, killing so many Dakota people in the winter of 1862
  6. the pleasing slide and crunch of the crushed limestone on this stretch of the trail
  7. a mix of surfaces: a few steps of limestone, then a flat, hard surface with a map printed on it
  8. running through the Ft. Snelling parking lot, then over to a trail next to Highway 55 — a tall wall then the highway on one side, strange bushes with ugly and ominous-looking pinecones on the other
  9. cutting through a narrow dirt trail near coldwater springs — running up and down as the path gently rose and fell over small hills
  10. a row of American flags lining the road right by the Veterans’ home — it’s Veterans’ Day

I did it! I probably could have listed another 10 things. This route was memorable.

nov 10/RUN

5.1 miles
franklin loop
37 degrees

More excellent November weather! A solid, relaxed, non-stop (except for walking up the bridge steps) run. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker and, later, another friendly runner — Hi! Admired the blue river and the occasional flash of red in the trees. Took deep breaths of fresh, cold air. Listened, without headphones, to the traffic and a chirping bird, rustling leaves and an alarm beeping somewhere.

10 Things

  1. a clear view of the forest floor from above
  2. so many green leaves still on the trees on the east side — light, glowing green
  3. somber (or reverent?) wind chimes
  4. smell 1: stinky, sour sewer gas, faint
  5. smell 2: either skunk or weed, probably weed
  6. smell 3: hot chocolate
  7. bright yellow headlights from cars, cutting through the trees
  8. some part of a machine scraping on a sidewalk somewhere in the distance
  9. a tree that I thought might be a person until I saw it in my periphery: a tree with one branch holding a hat at head-height
  10. a woman walker in bright orange pants

At the end of my run, I took a picture from the top of the hill, above the tunnel of trees, across from the ancient boulder:

Overlooking a forest that winds down to the river, which is a faint white -- or no color, just the absence of brown branches and yellowed leaves. Mostly bare branches and a brown ground covered in fallen leaves. In the lower right-hand corner a chain link fence stretches. This fence marks where the Winchell Trail used to go after coming up from the ravine. Now it's barely a trail, mostly hidden by leaves, no longer maintained. Just outside of the frame on the left, a green leaf flutters in the wind.
a view to the river near the 35th street parking lot / 10 november 2023

I love this poem by Donika Kelly, and I love what magic she can do with words!

I love you. I miss you. Please get out of my house. / Donika Kelly

Nothing today hasn’t happened before:
I woke alone, bundled the old dog
into his early winter coat, watered him,
fed him, left him to his cage for the day
closing just now. My eye drifts
to the buff belly of a hawk wheeling,
as they do, in a late fall light that melts
against the turning oak and smelts
its leaves bronze.
Before you left,
I bent to my task, fixed in my mind
the slopes and planes of your face;
fitted, in some essential geography,
your belly’s stretch and collapse
against my own, your scent familiar
as a thousand evenings.
Another time,
I might have dismissed as hunger
this cataloguing, this fitting, this fixing,
but today I crest the hill, secure in the company
of my longing. What binds us, stretches:
a tautness I’ve missed as a sapling,
supple, misses the wind.

I love all the work the title does to set up the poem, how she describes it as watering the dog (and not giving the dog water), and these verbs: cataloging/fitting/fixing. My favorite sentence, and the reason I wanted to post this poem today, is this:

My eye drifts
to the buff belly of a hawk wheeling,
as they do, in a late fall light that melts
against the turning oak and smelts
its leaves bronze.

A late fall light that melts against the tree and smelts it leaves bronze? Wow. I want tp remember that line. I’d also like to find an example of it out by the gorge on my run today (I’m writing this bit before my run), but there’s no autumn sunlight today, just gray gray gray. I wonder, what does gray to those leaves?

during the run: I hoped to think about this question of what gray does to the leaves, but I got distracted, or maybe, it didn’t do much, at least not today. Most of the leaves were gold or orangish-brown, no shimmering or sizzling, just soft and flat.

Instead of thinking about what gray does to the leaves, I was thinking about some lines I’d like to add to my Haunts poem:

A girl runs
four blocks
to the gorge.
She’s all
muscle bone
and breath,
foot strikes and
arm swings.
The river
and ghosts
wait.

transcript: During the run I was thinking about ghosts and girls and the gorge. And I was thinking that what I’m really trying to convey is that there’s a heaviness and a solidness and a there-ness that is both good and too heavy. So there’s a desire to lighten up. What I want to do is convey the heaviness, so maybe using the word, “heavy,” heavy foot strikes. Then I was thinking of Lizzy McAlpine and her song, “all my ghosts.” And then I was thinking about how all these ghosts aren’t primarily a bad thing, but there are a few ghosts I struggle with more than others. I think the ghost of cancer is haunting me the most right now.

the chorus from McAlpine’s “all my ghosts”:

And all my ghosts were with me
I know you felt them too
Watchin’ as I started to get dizzy
‘Cause I hate all of my habits
But I happen to love you
I hope that’s true

another version of my lines:

A girl runs.
She’s all
muscle bone
and breath,
heavy foot
falls and
swinging arms.
At the
river her
ghosts wait.

nov 8/RUN

5.5 miles
ford loop
43 degrees

Ah, November! Ran through the neighborhood, past the kids playing outside at the church daycare, past the house that has a giant Packer’s flag hanging from their fence, past the window of the business where I watch myself run and wonder if the people inside are watching me watch myself, over the lake street bridge to the east side of the river. On the bridge, I passed a couple holding hands. A mile later, I passed another hand-holding couple. An unusual sighting, and twice. Ran up the long hill to the Monument, then beside the river until I reached the ford bridge. Stopped to take a picture on the bridge, then ran the rest of the way back with Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo.

A view from the ford bridge, poorly framed. Not sure what color other people might see here, but to me it's all gray: light gray sky and river, broken up by chunks of dark gray trees. I like how the sky and the river look almost the same color to me.
taken from the ford bridge / 8 november 2023
My view of the river from the ford bridge. I stuck my phone above the railing, pointed and clicked quickly, afraid I might drop my phone into the river. For me, this image is fuzzy, almost furry, with soft greens and golds and grays. Most of the shot is of the past-their-prime trees on the shore of the Mississippi. All along the left edge curved around the trees is the light gray river which, at some point, turns into the sky. This image looks more like a painting than a photograph.
taken, with some trepidation, over the railing of the ford bridge / 8 november 2023

10 Things

  1. kids playing at the church daycare, several of them huddled at the fence, one of them (accidentally?) threw a ball over the side
  2. blue water, some waves, a few streaks or trails from something
  3. running above shadow falls, not sure if I was hearing it dripping or the wind through the trees
  4. running up the summit hill, a stretch of lit street lamps lining the path, the amber lights glowing softly
  5. noticing the gloom and the absence of my shadow as I ran around the ravine
  6. wondering if I would get to hear the St. Thomas bells as I ran close to campus (nope)
  7. chickadee dee dee
  8. turkeys! I’m not quite sure, but I think they were hanging out in the grass, just past the ford bridge, before you head down the hill to the locks and dam
  9. an unnaturally vibrant green on some of the leaves on the east side of the river — is this spring or late fall?
  10. an intense smell of cinnamon shortly before reaching the ford bridge — where was it coming from? someone’s gum? a bush?

before the run

Last night during Scott’s South High Community Jazz Band rehearsal, when I sit and listen and work on poetry, I returned to Susan Tichy’s North | Rock | Edge. Wow! This morning, before my run, I’m thinking about the lines I read and an interview Tichy did for Terrain.

There’s also a sensory excitement in a sea-rock-light-wind-bird-flower-seal-seep-peat-rain-salt—oh look, there’s a whale!—environment that subsumes attention to any one thing into the press of the whole.

I love how she describes the environment and her idea of attention to the whole, not just to any one thing.

Rock blurs the categories of time and space by making time visible and place temporal. A poem uses both rest and motion to create a form, which can be seen and must be heard—as the Susan Howe epigraph says, fleeting and fixed. These poems, like many in Avalanche Path, have a surface texture of fragmentation, abrupt change, and brokenness metamorphized into a new whole, voiced in present time, human time. Nothing is still; nothing is uniform.

And here’s a wonderful bit from the first part of Tichy’s poem, 60 North|Arriving, Stand Still:

& here wind

elevates to a theory

of time : to not miss a single

wave’s decay, a verse

of coast becoming dearth

of certainty, to undefine

the edge as noun, dissolving

in the not unyielding mouth

of cliff : verse/reverse

from the root of turn :

wind-wave & swell

compounded to a single

force, broken

by the thing it breaks—

In the next section she offers this line, what place is not. The gorge as what place is not, or where place one was?

during the run

I think Tichy’s poem influenced my thoughts indirectly as I ran. I was thinking about a part of my Haunts poem I’m working on, particularly about how I am sometimes a girl, sometimes a ghost, and sometimes a gorge. Am I the gorge, I wondered as I started running. And as I ran over the lake street bridge I came up with an answer: yes. Later, when I reached to ford bridge, I stopped running to record some thoughts:

I am the gorge because the gorge is the remains, what is left behind, what continues to exist even as ground erodes, self erodes, vision erodes. The gorge, constantly shifting, but always there. The gorge is the eroded. Is the ghost the verb, the eroding? … I am also the gorge because I’m constantly leaving part of myself here and becoming this place and not just moving through the place, becoming the place.