Osler's Razor

I am running in the spring in Edina and thinking about this trial. Around me, there is life everywhere, everywhere.

In a front yard there is a three year old boy. He holds a sippy cup in one hand and his face is smeared with chocolate. He stands benignly off to the side as his parents talk to the neighbor. I look at him, in the eyes, smile and put up my hand. His face lights up, and his hand comes up and flattens out hopefully against the evening sky.

Because I do listen to music when I run, it moves with me, changes. When I turned to the north, here is what came on next:



I'm into town now, dodging through the people, weaving through sundresses. I run past the Edina Grill, and the tables outside are full with families, laughter and the rattle of plates; the big wooden windows at Barrio are swung open to the world again, and people look out like doomed flowers opening. I push past them, faster now. I think: "Simon Peter, the traitor fisherman. 'Get behind me Satan....' Christ said that to you."

And then I turn back towards home, and the music changes again.



There is a creek, Minnehaha, which winds every which way around my house, like a string on the ground wrapped around the church and the stores and the tall pine trees. It was bursting full, rushing full force like a bobsled through my town. I ran over the stone bridge and looked down and saw the white water, could hear the pulse of its life even over the music in my ears. It isn't cute or pretty-- it is beautiful and powerful and destructive, pushing before it all manner of broken things which it will carry to the Mississippi to be reassigned to other forms. That's what happens, isn't it? The primal forces within break things apart and carry them away, break them down so they can be made anew into something else.

I can feel my heart beating, the questions coming, the rhythm of what I do. I am the river.

There is petrol
Pooled at your feet
And your eyes are ablaze
Do I have a match?
No. I am.