Why does life contain heartache and sorrows?
Why does God permit suffering and pain?
What is there from uncertain tomorrows
that mankind stands to gain?

I’ll not quote you a lesson from scripture;
a theologian, indeed, I am not.
Sometimes lessons from life help us picture
what hard doctrine cannot.

Years ago, I discovered that running
on a track, thrice each week, in the morn,
caused a change in my life. It was stunning,
much like being reborn.

Though it took me a while to get used to,
to reach optimum distance and time,
once I’d realized my goal—I can tell you—
I was feeling just fine.

The track was inside a large building,
a grand complex of concrete and steel.
Its surface was even and yielding:
the conditions ideal,

the temperature: comfort, perfection.
It was safe, not a chance I would fall.
Those who ran faced the self-same direction:
no distractions at all.

And yet, once I had reached my objective,
when my quota for fitness was full,
what before had been novel and festive
now became rather dull.

As time passed, given any good reason,
I would skip a day’s workout or two.
And if not for a change in the season,
my conditioning was through.

With the spring and a break in the weather,
on the side of the road, oft I’d see
people running, alone or together;
it just might work for me.

But the road held one obvious danger.
The solution, good luck would avail:
in the canyon I spotted a stranger
running safe on a trail.

Though its course ran the self-same direction
as the road, it was nearer the stream.
Trees concealed it from sight and attention;
it could hardly be seen.

I discovered its origin and distance
and determined to give it a try.
It refurbished my fitness persistence.
I’ll explain to you why.

From the trail, I can see God’s creations,
from the cliffs to the rocks in the creek.
Sights and smells, sounds, and other sensations
are diverse and unique.

Each new day brings a different adventure,
something new for my soul to be taught;
and there’s no one around who can censor
any feeling or thought.

And few details escape my reflection;
God has blessed us with so much to see.
Every object from nature’s collection
holds a lesson for me:

the new colors that autumn delivers,
the first butterfly hatch in the spring,
the soft snowfalls and ice on the river
that the wintertime brings.

Running trails brings joy if one chooses,
but the privilege exacts its own price.
There are blisters, sore muscles, and bruises,
and you fall once or twice.

The trail’s surface is bumpy and jagged,
often treacherous in rain or in snow,
and its course runs uneven and ragged;
often progress is slow.

But I’ve never once missed the convenience
I’ve forsaken by leaving the track,
and in spite of its promise of lenience,
I could never go back.

For by doing what’s hard, I grow stronger;
and in light of the chance I might fail,
I run slower, but farther and longer,
when I run on the trail.

And I sense a rapport, a strange kinship,
with the runners I meet on my way;
and a curious unspoken friendship
tempers each running day.

In the struggle in heaven, two brothers
waged a war to determine life’s course.
Our two-thirds chose a trail, while the others
found a track to endorse.

Why does life contain heartache and sorrows?
Why does God permit suffering and pain?
What is there from uncertain tomorrows
that we all stand to gain?

It’s from doing what’s hard that we’re stronger;
and in light of the chance we might fail,
we run slower, but much farther and much, much longer
when we run on the trail.

Just prior to my son’s departure for a mission in southern Brazil, I set a personal goal that, during the two years he was away, I would run the distance that separated us. This meant increasing significantly the number of my daily laps around the indoor track where I spent a part of my lunch hour. By the time I reached the level of conditioning that allowed me to run for the required time and distance, I had grown rather bored with my surroundings. Long before spring arrived, the tedium had become almost unbearable. So in March, I escaped from the track in the field house into the streets. A couple of near disasters prompted me to try less dangerous venues. The beautiful Logan Canyon River Trail and the trail that parallels the canal that runs through what we call “the Island” soon became—and they are still—my favorite routes.

Running, is for me more than physical exercise, it is my time each day (every other day now that I’m growing older and it takes me a full day to recover) to be alone with my thoughts, a time for personal reflection and meditation. Before I wrote my first poem, “The Willow Switch,” I had often pondered, while running, the possibility of some day writing creatively; and it was, in fact, while running in Logan Canyon that the idea for the poem came to me. But my first idea for a poem occurred to me several months before in the thought of using running the trail as a metaphor for life; and I returned to that notion in my fourteenth poem, when, while running one day on that same trail, the last two verses, “I run slower, but farther and longer / when I run on the trail,” came to me. With both the final verses and the meter decided, I set to work. Appropriately, it was while running that the details of the poem took form, and my best writing sessions often took place somewhere between Second and Third Dams as I slowed to a walk to rest and write using the pencil stub and folded sheet of paper I carried in my pocket or my sock.

I have returned often to the theme of this my first idea for a poem in other poems, and in my novels. The poem, in fact, appears in my first novel, The Doll in McCallaway’s Store, at a pivotal point in the story. If the poem speaks to your life’s experience, as it does to mine, I’m quite sure you will also enjoy the novel.