Running and poetry strike me as similar in a few ways. They require an awareness of yourself, the surrounding world, and how you interact with it. There is a rhythm to poetry, the cadence of words spoken aloud together, just as there’s a rhythm to running, in the beat of footfalls on earth. Runners and poets are witnesses to early mornings and pain and joy, to the everyday life that happens in the silence and in between.

The following poems were written by PPTC members who are runners and poets. In their poems, they’ve explored joy, anguish, love, interconnectedness, injustices, and care. On this last day of poetry month, may these poems fill you with reflection and hope.

Well Met Joy

I feel joy on every run

Sometimes she is there from the first step

A warm pink haze atop my shoulders

On other days she lies in wait—

Peeking out to wave hello at the sight of some small and brilliant treasure:

A bud on a branch that yesterday was bare

A low and lazy crescent moon in the early morning cold and dark

A dog in a contented canter alongside his biped companion

A red light at the crest of Flatbush hill (mile 9 of my bridge loop)

On other days she doesn’t show until the end

As my building comes into focus and I know that I am nearly done

She kicks the covers back and greets me, impish and late

My favorite though

Is when she meets me on her terms

When I maybe least expect her

One moment my head is empty and I am simply running (a joy in and of itself)

And in the next she charges in

My brain and body united not at odds

Both in awe of this most simple miracle:

That I can run

— Anonymous :) (she/her)

How Chat GPT imagines what a runner looks like after mile repeats!

An Ode to Mile Repeats

To run mile repeats

Be light on your feet

Open wide your stride

Fatigue, you must hide

Down and up that hill you go

On Center Drive, grit, you must show

And in the final stretch indeed

Accelerate, ramp up your speed

For your teammates will clap and cheer

As you run out of breath, my dear!

But it will all be worth the pain

Aye, this workout will keep you sane!

— Ola Galal (she/her)

A Footfall

Across cobbles

asphalt

concrete, too

and dirt,

rocks from before my time

yours too, and forever after both ours.

but such soft ripples do carry beneath, among the worms and roots

their lives close by, seldom seen

imperceptible, but so real

footfalls move on, reminding them, as we go.

somewhere, a butterfly's wings now flutter

not from the touch of wind

but the melody that carries up his delicate perch, by our footfalls

beckoning flight

wings lofting an order of magnitude more freely, softly, elegantly

than our footfalls' song

— anonymous

THE PROSPECT OF SPRING

Defiant and despite ice, the daffodils came,

Already among the blithe birds just after

the sun asserts itself over the lake, touching the shoulders

and caps of runners in rhythm with themselves

A golden touch

They glide past magnolias heavy with pink,

one rarer yellow peeking through

Undone by joy, buds unfolding in the sun

Life’s cycle again

spring at the start

All things blooming, the muscle of the heart,

Trees pulsing water from root to branch

Each bloom, step, proclaiming rebirth

We could be like trees if we tried;

We could welcome our neighbors, let vines climb us

take every drop of rain, turn it into food

dispense our fruit and nuts abundantly

reach toward the sun while stretching our roots,

support each other deep underground;

cool with the wind,

shelter the birds and squirrels.

Now: run up this hill where no kings are or were ever welcome;

Honor the humble spirits of indigenous plants and stones.

Stand tall together;

one day, one at at time, we will fall

To feed the earth, become the bed

That begets another tree

Beckons the daffodils back

From under the frozen winter ground.

— DL Newton (she/her)

A tree with whitish pink flowers in full bloom against a bright blue sky. Beneath the tree two people sit on a wooden bench eating amongst the flower petals which litter the green grass. In the background a blue hammock can be seen between two trees. — Photo provided by DL Newton

FALSE SPRING

Twenty six degrees, “feels like” fourteen

Huddled into yourself, you opened

Windows in the temperate yesterday

Cold almost spring sun

to replace stale air

With “fresh” walked to the library

Head down watching the ground

expecting crocuses

Before the war, the wars, the concentration

camps

happy days, syncopated footfalls

Of the runners in the park

Escaping something

Singing from their hurt hearts

as they split all the air

they encounter

gasping to grasp enough

to keep moving

It’s said there are doors hidden

in hills, missile silos, weapons

slipped into landscapes

Slender switchblades rooting

down among daffodils

Remember when out of the gloom came dancers

An ancient whistling

A singing of birds’ songs

Preparing to fly

A gypsy’s left foot, heel/toe, heel/toe,

Pivot, leaping over a principled stand

Across damned and polished cobblestones.

You don’t register the storm

rolling in just behind;

disdaining to imagine fields of anything but flowers

March always gives way

to riotous April, laughing

but not before a battle that breaks your thin panes

Window eyes

rocks thrown, bullets fired

Lightning splitting the ancient whistling tree

Its heart burnt and blackened

Its arms branching dead

on the cold sharp ground.

— DL Newton

ARCH

Concavity

rib cage

to pelvis

arches in Prospect Park

echo

I have no food food ood ood

no money money oney oney

no home home home ohm

please lease ease ease

Like a child, he’d made a bed of leaves

and plastic bags

he’d pulled

from bare branches, a quilt rescued from a garbage bin

it fit neatly in the narrow recess of tunnel

endale

huddled

tired

poor

hunger fills

the hollow beneath his caged heart

O, to be full of something –

– music –

drawn into the tunnel by a cellist playing Bach

heart-on-strings sound surrounded his soul

a lifted light

—he had paper and charcoal in his bag—

how? Never mind; he listened

breath struggling against its rattle

then sketched his own tortured face over and over

They evicted him anyway way way ay

Is not his heart resident in his ribcage cage age?

Now this once golden tunnel

hollow

between

the meadow and the exit.