Crunchy run! Poem by a poet’s husband who was also a poet! Pics!

What a title.  But it’s true the trails were crunchy today, crunchy and slidy and some places mushy or even muddy and always coldy. I waited for the temperature to go all the way up to -3°C before heading out but with the sun shinning most of the time it really felt like at least +.05°C (tee hee). 

Managed to have a great run nonetheless, clocking in 21.5k in about 2h25. Kind of hard to go very fast when in the slippy slidy conditions! 

#spottedthebird there are several of them in the field.

Today’s odd looking graph!

So over the years for one reason or another I have pretty much ignored the English poet Ted Hughes. No small feat considering my interest in poetry and the number of bookstores I worked in over the years (five if memory serves). I just thought of him as Sylvia Plath’s bastard of a husband; harsh words I know but by all accounts true.

I picked up a slim looking selection of his poems from the bargain bin at the Gibert Joseph bookshop in town the other day and have to admit I have been devouring it! Beautiful stuff really! So glad I stumbled on it, that’s what I love about used book stores the serendipity factor. 

I haven’t finished the book yet but here is one I enjoyed.

Hawk Roosting

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!
The air’s buoyancy and the sun’s ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth’s face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly –
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads –

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.

–Ted Hughes. 

On another note, I have decided to leave Facebook and I think the quotation above says it all. I have been increasingly frustrated with the lack of civil dialogue  (especially) since the US election. So much division and name calling it’s stressed me out more than its worth. Considering how unimportant it is and how pathetically addicted to it that I am I figure I need serious rehab! Detoxification of the fb. Ya know!? I tried “cleaning up” my page so to speak, by unfollowing people and sites…but I don’t think that’s enough. I need to quit all together. The only thing I need is to save all my pictures somehow and then just pull the plug. I have encouraged folks to follow me on this site (or instagram for pictures). Have any of you reached critical mass with the Facebook??

And finally…I started a new part-time job on Friday! Teaching English  (surprisingly, non?) to students at a sort of technical college. I only say “sort of” because I don’t know what the English equivalent of it is. Maybe like a community college in the US. My students are all second year chemistry students and generally 19 or 20 years old. I have 3 classes back to back Friday afternoons for an hour and and half each. It was really great fun! I can NOT remember ever looking THAT young. Just not possible. Some of the boys especially looked like they were 15 or 16! Oh my goodness, to be back at that stage of life WOW. French employment laws being, well french, make that this part time jobs pays about 3x what I make at my regular gig. Yeah, it’s a bit of a head scratcher but I just have to say hells yeah! 

Have a good weekend! If I am feeling super duper ambitious tomorrow I will go for another run so I might see you afterwards. Time for some hot chocolate and more reading!