Outside my window, a man running.
Though it's mid-winter, ten above,
he stays the course, determined
to shed those Xmas pounds, lop off

another tick from his last 10K,
or better yet, live another year
or two, provided come-what-may
isn't a skidding car or cancer.

Focused, head down, pumping fists,
worry washes off him with his sweat.
Though God may be dead, Fitness
has replaced im, as millions bent

on lower heart rates like acolytes
to Rome take to their morning run,
a daily sacrifice for the lithe,
sure ease of a country they call Health.

Meanwhile, I think of Verdun,
men (boys, really) gone ‘over the top'
and through jagged wire to run
forever and a mile, never to stop

or know or breathe the scent of pine,
fresh fallen snow, or see the expanse
of road whose glare arrests the sun,
and on which we've run ever since