I do not yet sit on park benches

Pigeons or not, I limp through pathways

And do not notice the construction,

Wooden, iron, concrete, plastic.

Someone actually planned the water it faces,

Made drawings that show appropriate

Sitting places

 

I’m sure they drew on wrinkled paper

(This one is to scale, see?)

My aunt would sit for hours, flounced,

Seeing through the Buffleheads,

The ducks were blurry moving things

That squabbled and bobbed over thin bread.

They were never what she was looking for.

 

My Mother-in-Law’s hearing aids do nothing

Or she prefers deafness to the alternative,

Ninety-seven years old and hearing things she heard when thirty or forty.

Now she sits on a solid surface with her shoes together,

Pointing at the pond and the glassy ribbon that

Reflects gray and black, furrowed earth, the cold concluding face.

When did things fade, disappear, when was the color spent?

 

 

Look, I can’t go where they went

The designed benches are painted bright colors and

Festooned with steel wedges to discourage sleeping.

 

 

 

©2017   eolon     (With apologies to John Prine)