my running, for various and likely stupid reasons managed to get pushed back until after 11pm this evening. on a normal occasion i might have been upset with that, and to be honest this was nearly a very normal ocassion. but then there was tchaikovski's "october", part of his "seasons", and then there was bach and his unaccompanied cello suites as played by yo-yo ma, and then there was the considerable dark, and yet another piece was the considerable cold. every piece playing perfectly into the hands of the other so that i could be reminded what running was like, alone, in the middle of the dark, down the middle of what is a normally busy street all with good music quietly accompanying each audible step. i bought the shuffle about 4 years ago to keep me company during my morning runs - some people can remember my telling of them, others (few) had been privey to their witness, and fewer still (one) managed to keep me company on a handful (for those the shuffle was left in its port) - and many of those early mornings shared the characteristics of this evening's run, a short 42' or so.

i had forgotten that the dark really helps to erase everything from your head, letting it wonder a bit through the space. seeing too many things is like having too much planned, it all just lumped into a mess and nothing can be comletely enjoyed as it should be. tonight, the focus somehow turned towards poetry. the disgust most people have toward poetry preferring the narrative. it may be that poets seem too self-engaged, too removed possibly. but i imagine another source of, maybe distrust?

the love of narrative and the hatred for poetry both seemingly have root in the same concept: effects. while narrative often allows you to feel the effects through, or even in another character, poetry has a much more direct effect on the reader. that is the point, poetry is emotive and that seems to make people rather uncomfortable with it. the thought of allowing something to get close, without some kind of fitler, is just too close. poetry in nature is like pealing the leaves of a roasted artichoke, verse by verse each getting richer until getting to the heart, where there is nothing to mask its rich flavors, and nothing left to disgard. the last piece has to be eaten, swollowed. literature has all the characters, each having to go through a certain process through which the reader can sympathise or empathise with the character. poetry does not evoke sympathy, nor empathy, it is the emotion rewrapped for the reader to stumble upon, happily, painfully, frustratingly, or simply bemused. good narrative can manage to tear away he filters of character, and make the public feel the emotion internally, and that may be what makes some keep their meaning instead of becoming pastel-binded novalties sold used in the local coffee.

can the reader trust something that makes them feel so much? can the modern figure accept a poem that causes a feeling of being weaker than a subordinate nature before borders ("psalm")? or before a clock, created by human kind, that grows to govern as a god?