Why I Run In Spring

Athens, Georgia

March 2011

Observations from a run on March 27, 2010

and reflections a year later.

Territorial birdsongs brightly pierce

the crisp predawn darkness through depths unseen

and from airy heights of those canopy worlds

there echo bold calls to awakening

as I set a light pace down below.

A brisk east wind blows cold against sweat,

through muscle and marrow and deeper yet

to cleanse my body, to lighten my soul,

to shed all distractions, to fall into flow

in silence of mind as I step out of time

and stride the high plains

under African sky

in searing noon heat

brash predator, I

to run the wild beast

through a dry thorny land

where the Garden is naught

but a hazy mirage

that hovers beyond

forty million more dawns

with all history’s tears

still yet to be shed

no burden of why

nor what lies ahead

eternity’s now

in my gathering will

in my pounding heart

and my gleaming skin

my deepening breath

the cooling wind

for immortal am I

till the moment I die

or run out my race

and reenter time

where asphalt yields to open fields

and far across a wakening park, white

halos of pear blossom hover against

silhouettes of pine emerging from dark,

pale spirits of spring in the soft morning light.

And so on a springtime Saturday run

my corporal spirit does sometimes soar

insubstantial past aching, to penetrate

the bubble of darkness encasing my core

in primitive peace, reconnected once more.