Trying, and failing, to capture the beauty

An autumn run has me pondering whether you fully appreciate nature when you're running through it

Photograph: Lukasz Szmigiel

We’ve had some stunning autumnal days this week and I’ve been lucky enough to get out for some late-morning runs, the sun bright, the air crisp, the colours almost hard to take in they’re so golden.

I kept getting pangs of guilt, however, that I wasn’t fully appreciating the splendour around me. Running along, it was all flashing by out of the corner of my eye. Was I really taking it in? Was I appreciating it enough?

Now and then I would stop, to try to do just that. If I’d had my phone, I would have taken a picture, to try to capture it that way. But it was just me, so I tried to stand there and appreciate it, absorb it. But I was out for a run. I was restless to carry on. 

Was I wasting these mornings, running through nature’s spectacle, rather than stopping to admire it? Surely such a colourful show deserved more attention?

These thoughts played on my mind, until I decided to try to put them down on paper. Maybe that would make sense of them. I ended up writing a poem.