Movement toward the barely possible

What a week. Sunday, I got lost running a hilly course in the boondocks. Monday, my foot feels funny. Could I be injured? What should I do? Wednesday I woke up feeling a bit under the weather. I went immediately to the grocey store, bought some vitamin c, some clementines, some orange juice. It got worse throughout the day.
My thoughts went from I could just run two miles instead of four or six to Perhaps I'll just rest today.

Anyhow, all these thoughts about my body has reminded me of one of my favorite poems, taped to the wall near my desk. So I'll share it with you.


Letting the puma go by Stephen Dunn

I'll make a perfect body, said God,
and invent ways for it to fail.
- lines removed from the poem

He liked to watch the big cats.
He liked their beautiful contempt,
yet imagined how they might change
and love him
and stretch out near his feet
if he were to let them go.
And of course he wanted
to let them go
as he wanted to let himself go,
grateful for the iron bars, the lock.
He'd heard the tiger succeeds
only once in twenty hunts -
the fragile are that attuned
and that fast -
and was confused again about God,
the god who presided here.
He'd watch the tigers at feeding time,
then turn to the black panther,
its languid fierce pacing, and know
it was possible not to care
if the handsome got everything.
Except for the lions.
Hadn't the lions over the years
become their names, like the famous?
But he could spend half an afternoon
with those outfielders,
the pumas, cheetahs, leopards.
So this is excellence, he imagined:
movement toward the barely possible,
the puma's dream
of running down a hummingbird
on a grassy plain.
And then he'd let the puma go;
just before closing time
he'd wish-open its cage
and follow it into the suddenly
uncalm streets,
telling all the children it was his.