Forgotten Ground Regained
Indivisible
L. Erickson
Flowers bloom but the park is bursting withrunning children wrapped around the shore.Beneath the pines perch parents and auntieseyes half-lidded letting little ones run.Slowly they sip while smoke from the charcoalswirls up in streams that eagles slip throughred and white ice chests filled with meats, readyto be thrown on the grill while old uncles drink.If you come to the cookout, you carry a cooler,says a sun-touched man, swinging steel tongs,while out on the water the waves shimmer, dancing,broken by black heads – big-eyed seals, watching.Young lovers embark on paddleboards laughing,showing smiles and skin in summer's calm heat,rolling their eyes at running, loud children,all while wishing for ones of their own.They're seeing a painting, a softening screen breathing in beauty – bewitched by the scene,a likeness they love, a life of light moments,an idyllic illusion: the American dream.But in the back bushes where soft shadows bunch,a boombox is playing for broken, bruised souls.Twenty feet from the children, they’re twirling and thrashing.Scar marks on thin arms, they’re smoking mix sticks.Already dead, the drugged men keep dancing,letting lives slip away like so much small chaff.The trash that they’ve littered tangles in park grass.But even these men were somebody’s one.Invisible, divided, a victory of vision.As aunties and uncles turn eyes away,don’t look at the danger, it will drag you down with it.Scared and suspicious, a silence descends.But curious kids have questions unanswered:What makes us go wrong, and why can’t we stop? The sun, setting heavy, splinters the city;two worlds of resentment wrench slowly apart.
Copyright © L. Erickson, 2025
No part of this site may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems