Reasons to Run

I never needed any reason to run,

not when the neighbor’s hogs burst the fence

and surrounded our home. As a lone

electron I coursed to consider them all;

Dad warned me in, then joined my valence,

less to protect than to share in the run.

When summers kindled all kinds of fire,

I sought out cool springs like a Jesus bug,

skimming the surface of things, I circled

the shoals of my undisclosed road

and ran through the waves with a shrug,

plumbing the depth of dreams on fire.

Loves here and now made sustenance then

and logging the miles meant less in the end

than legging them as I could. I needed

no reason to run, no medals from races,

no personal bests, no college letters to send,

no fleeing from cops or crooks. But then

my father died, and my step-father too.

My brother got cancer and though he came

through, my inchoate teaching of Hamlet

would never resort to by-the-book notes.

The twenty-third psalm is one and the same:

a valley, still waters, a chapel to run to…

God knows each story veers from the rest

and cancers return in ways no one would think.

Five miles in Lake Forest meant everything,

pacing the weeks and the years gone by.

Nature ensures water striders don’t sink;

they run, ruminate, and relish the rest.