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Running with John

          AFTERNOON DELIGHT


He stands in front of his locker
Head down like a bull tired of charging
Red-flagged ideas and gray provocations.
He holds the lock cradled forgotten
In his hand.  Oh crap, he says.  Oh crap.

It is the forty-four year old jogger's
Stomach-dull, leg-weary apprehension
Of pain.  John says it again:  Oh crap.

He does not hear himself.

We layer ourselves against the ice-
Sharp west wind, debating where to run
Turning finally north, hunching up
Beneath Tower Dorms, sorry already
Swinging left toward Silvercrest.

We run the road like mortar against pestle
Talking the day into retrospective calm
Rehearsing the ordinary irritations
Pulverizing administrative grit.

The road wanders ticky-tacky up the hill
Demanding incremental attention

Pickup and school bus busy.
We lament leg and breath and hill
Calculating both summit and strength
Glad finally for the impartial leveling
Of millennial ice, and for persistence.

We run mutely.  Early victors.

Remembering every rural joke
About turning where the barn burned down
We run left where once the sign
For Wonder Cave pointed right
Coasting free toward Malanaphy Bridge
Breathing easy, talking again
Past barking dogs and scolding turkeys
Perked goats and deliberate burros
An elm-dead road following water
Through burr oak and birch
To the Oneota River, iron-spanned
And embroidered with January ice.

Six miles.  Six good miles.

We turn left on the Pole Line Road
Ordinary as a county clerk
A winding line of least resistance
Wandering east from Cresco and Orleans.
We balance along the shoulder
Believing in the Promised Land
Content to come full circle
Gaining what we gave.

The river comes back
Left where it had been right
Trying the persistence of stone
Content and inevitable
Bound lazy for the sea

We rehearse airport history
Turkeys, ponds and ski runs
Gauge diesel trucks and distance
Fighting fatigue and celebrating
Determination, believers again
Commanding the illusion of grace
Satisfied with survival.

Sweated cool and stripped bare
We lean smiling back against the throb
Of shoulder warming showers
Pulsing away salted weariness
And John says Ah!

We soap the day into delight.

How far did you go?  someone asks
And we say nine miles, and laugh.

It is our secret.





                                                           --Conrad Røyksund
                                                              February 1980

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