Running at Night
May 23 2013
I remember running at night.
How fast it feels;
untroubled by thought,
enclosed
in the bubble of dark;
existence distilled
to body heat
the need to breath,
hypnotic ease
of pace.
Running as far as I can
just to go back,
a god, in stamina
in quickly cooling air.
Or imagine moving on,
a clean break
free of care.
Feet barely touching the ground
body virtually gone
-- an automaton,
set in motion
and left.
Now, on a lame hip, ageing knees
I walk.
But nights are just as magical;
in a world unnaturally still,
where all they catch is a glimpse of me
ghosting through.
Knowing that humans have always walked,
migrating
to the ends of the earth,
blindly setting-out.
I remember running at night.
How fast it feels;
untroubled by thought,
enclosed
in the bubble of dark;
existence distilled
to body heat
the need to breath,
hypnotic ease
of pace.
Running as far as I can
just to go back,
a god, in stamina
in quickly cooling air.
Or imagine moving on,
a clean break
free of care.
Feet barely touching the ground
body virtually gone
-- an automaton,
set in motion
and left.
Now, on a lame hip, ageing knees
I walk.
But nights are just as magical;
in a world unnaturally still,
where all they catch is a glimpse of me
ghosting through.
Knowing that humans have always walked,
migrating
to the ends of the earth,
blindly setting-out.
And whether going to, or
getting out,
there is the loneliness of the long distance runner
who cannot run far
there is the loneliness of the long distance runner
who cannot run far
from himself.
A solitary man
in starlit night
under vast indifferent sky,
almost effortless
in his measured trance,
step-by-step-by-step.
Who must learn to be alone,
at home
inside his head.
As the poem says, I used to run, and now have to find the same solace in walking. Which I don't think suits night-time as well: there isn't the same inexplicable sense of speed and stamina, or even quite the same sense of invisibility.
Running, no matter how social, is still essentially solitary: alone with your thoughts, your pain, your sense of accomplishment -- or failure; and, when you're lucky enough to have it all come together, alone with the exhilaration of a body that seems to go by itself -- effortless, automatic, weightless. It's then that you seem to think with laser-sharp clarity, and when your body seems more god-like than mortal. (Walking, I'm afraid, not so much once again.) This is something I very much wanted to convey, and ended up doing so in 3 out of the 4 stanzas, going from "hypnotic ease" to "automaton" to "measured trance": doing, but I hope not over-doing.
Whatever your reason for running or walking, you can't go fast enough to get away from yourself. If anything, you run into yourself: it's a great time for introspection, for living inside your head. Which may be why I always liked to run: that I'm good at living in my head (and probably like it too much for my own good!) So "the loneliness of the long distance runner" is not so much a lament as it is a highly desirable state, in that I see the solitude more as aloneness than loneliness.
Humans are the best walkers, the champion endurance animal. That's why our ancestors survived, and what we were born to do. Of course, being someone who likes to live in his head, I'm hardly the adventurous type. Nevertheless, the romance of "blindly setting out" is still irresistible -- even if just in poetic form! The same theme is also present in the preceding stanza: the idea of "moving on", ...(of) vanish(ing)". I think we have all thought this, if not out for a run then out for a drive: "What if I left everything behind, made a clean break and just kept on going?" This might have been as good a place to leave the reader -- perhaps better -- that "inside his head." But the stanzas seemed to work best in this order, and so "blindly setting out" had to settle for 2nd last.
A solitary man
in starlit night
under vast indifferent sky,
almost effortless
in his measured trance,
step-by-step-by-step.
Who must learn to be alone,
at home
inside his head.
As the poem says, I used to run, and now have to find the same solace in walking. Which I don't think suits night-time as well: there isn't the same inexplicable sense of speed and stamina, or even quite the same sense of invisibility.
Running, no matter how social, is still essentially solitary: alone with your thoughts, your pain, your sense of accomplishment -- or failure; and, when you're lucky enough to have it all come together, alone with the exhilaration of a body that seems to go by itself -- effortless, automatic, weightless. It's then that you seem to think with laser-sharp clarity, and when your body seems more god-like than mortal. (Walking, I'm afraid, not so much once again.) This is something I very much wanted to convey, and ended up doing so in 3 out of the 4 stanzas, going from "hypnotic ease" to "automaton" to "measured trance": doing, but I hope not over-doing.
Whatever your reason for running or walking, you can't go fast enough to get away from yourself. If anything, you run into yourself: it's a great time for introspection, for living inside your head. Which may be why I always liked to run: that I'm good at living in my head (and probably like it too much for my own good!) So "the loneliness of the long distance runner" is not so much a lament as it is a highly desirable state, in that I see the solitude more as aloneness than loneliness.
Humans are the best walkers, the champion endurance animal. That's why our ancestors survived, and what we were born to do. Of course, being someone who likes to live in his head, I'm hardly the adventurous type. Nevertheless, the romance of "blindly setting out" is still irresistible -- even if just in poetic form! The same theme is also present in the preceding stanza: the idea of "moving on", ...(of) vanish(ing)". I think we have all thought this, if not out for a run then out for a drive: "What if I left everything behind, made a clean break and just kept on going?" This might have been as good a place to leave the reader -- perhaps better -- that "inside his head." But the stanzas seemed to work best in this order, and so "blindly setting out" had to settle for 2nd last.
The line " ...the ends of the earth". may too much of a cliché So originally, I fudged with " ...to fill the earth". But the neat little resonance of "ends ...setting ...getting" was too good to waste. So for the sake of sound, I ended up risking being criticized for cliché. Does the trade-off work?
\
No comments:
Post a Comment