Center Park

Center Park

So many lives overlap

At once they are unified

Only to separate upon the child’s restless gaze

And commitments yet arranged.

Children play sometimes grouping in 3’s and 9’s

Games that teach skills discovered

Through battles of swords made of sticks and silly woes.

And then the junior high buzz wisps by

Cotton candy perfume delights my nose

And schemes of social hierarchy

Shifting from cons to prose.

Boys chorus in with those sweet new voices,

Cracking sly witty teases

To the girls all whispering.

And again my eye catches

Young games at the playground.

Two girls are twirling

One falls on the ground, softly,

The other giggles with hands for help up.

Then huffs of a chase taking place on the bridge,

Connecting one look out tower look-a-like

To a pole for sliding down.

Five boys all in jeans, no older than six

Running from another claiming to be

Captain of Thordor,

Ten feet tall, two cars wide.

And so sit the parents looking up at their kids,

Or down at the one helped up from the ground,

And so they think blankly

Still eyes on their kids,

Catching time to be empty--

For a moment to breathe.

Passing now is a family

Dad with his boy and dog not much shorter

Then ten paces back, mother and daughter together walk

All matching with hair dark as hemlock

I notice the stride of the dad so foreign

Steps distinct and deliberate

With knees that kick back.

Each person in this family of exotic blood walks

In a stride just like this:

Digital and harsh.

At the tennis courts—

Unofficially for men only

No women allowed—

Some sit chatting on benches

About matches of Federer and Nadal

Or just days gone by since last they each passed.

Others in all white

Whack rackets against balls—

Neon green with white stripes—

Over a net three feet tall.

They yell out in anger:

“Shit” and grunts of air.

Behind me to the left

Is the “hut” I know well.

Summers of tie-dye messes and

Balls falling down the hill,

Spent all with this hut

Constant and set,

Trees lining its perimeter

And overlooking the brook.

Back at camp held here you see,

There was a time I would be

A counselors pet times three.

I’d follow them around,

Get a ride on their backs,

And words told so nicely

Like that I was cute and sweet

And the best at basketball.

All this for a fee so small:

Just fetch them water every now and again

And scratch their backs—

I would get the best summer

If I just did that!

Along the way while being their chum,

I’d meet other kids and play

Games like the ones I’m seeing today.

I come here to remember

Days passed and forgotten,

Brought alive by the youth

I sit here a far watching.