Running in Circles
All this chatter about relays has me remembering a great “running poem” by Ron Rash. Does anyone know who this guy is? What I know about him is that he nearly stopped time in this poem.
Running the Mile Relay,
by Ron RashOurs was an easy courage.
none of us college prep,
we did time in Crest High’s
vocational wing,learning nothing
that would save us
from trailer parks and mill work,
of even a winding-down war.So we ran against time,
lived for stolen seconds,
finding our measure
brassed in trophy cases.Tight as the baton,
we gripped our certain knowledge:
this running in circles meant
more than anything coming.
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I found Ron Rash:
http://www.irisbooks.com/rash/
Comment by Joan — 8/31/2005 @ 9:33 pm
[...] But I could be counted on to run my rock-steady 62 on the 2nd leg of the mile relay. My senior year we got 4th at state with Angela Boyce, me, Lisa Blakeney, and my other track hero, Sandra Carter. Here we are - fuzzy in the photo, but oh-so-clear in my memory - holding the stick for East Meck. I wonder what these gals are up to now? Do they remember me? Are pictures of our relay team growing moldy in their basements? Lately, time is playing tricks on me. Last week I had the baton in my hand for a 400m at age 45 … some, 27 years after this photo was taken … and my 64-second relay split wasn’t that far-off my high school best … just two little seconds …yet almost a billion seconds have passed since the state meet in 1980 (851,472,000 seconds if I did the math right) and I feel like I am swimming in mildew. . [...]
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