More Mary Oliver...and Ultrarunning

As I have said here more than once, I realize that when many of you see poetry, you cannot hit that DELETE key fast enough.

But...if you ever got up at daybreak for a run, you know this feeling (credit to The Writer's Almanac). 

So just give this one a try--please?


Why I Wake Early

by Mary Oliver

 

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and crotchety—

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light—
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

 

The First Run of the New Year

With Mister Tristan around (the 4 year old human being, not the blog), plus Christmas, coupled with our love of trains, we saw a LOT of The Polar Express the past few weeks.

So I was reminded this morning of the scene in the movie where the boy is selected by Santa to receive The First Gift of Christmas, a pretty big deal.  And the boy opts not for some major toy but rather simply asks Santa for a sleigh bell that had fallen from one of the reindeer's harness.

So today was The First Run of the New Year, simple but symbolic.  I was a tad underdressed, having not properly focused on the weather whne I dressed--I thought it was 10 F warmer and that there would be little or no wind (wrong!), so it was quite a chilly run. 

But it was a great harbinger for the year--I hope--in that I felt strong, swift, and powerful.  I felt, in the words of the poet Mary Oliver:

"I feel my heart pumping hard, I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.  I want to be light and frolicsome.  I want to be improbable, beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings." -- Mary Oliver, 'Starlings in Winter'
 

Here's hoping to great running for all of us in 2013.
 

When Death Comes...and Ultrarunning

Via Hecate--who is a witch, seriously--we get a wonderful Mary Oliver poem.  Guess I'm back on the immortality theme again:


When Death ComesWhen death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.


We Ultrarunners won't have simply visited this world--we have trod it, sweated on it, bled on it, and embraced it.  The backcountry brings us life in all its glory.

I Feel my Heart Pumping Hard....

Some weeks ago I ran across a quote that I just loved, from a Mary Oliver poem entitled Starlings in Winter:

I feel my heart pumping hard, I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.

This is the way I sometimes feel while out on the trail...these are the types of runs that all ultrarunners live for.  Delighting in your running body and thinking thoughts that soar.