Park Bench

A moment in Time

I sat on the Park Bench by the Splash Pad

Mixed feelings about work

A need to ground

Sit with nature and find my sound

Writing away in my Work Journal

I noticed a child walk up to the splash pad

Take off his shoes

And run to the button

Pressing it he ran back to the Pad

Playing in the spouts

I sat in the moment

Writing as the boy played

When I realized a pattern

That truly changed my day

He would run to the button

In between bouts of play

Wet feet on the hot ground

I wanted to play

To release the stress of work

And be free for a while

But I wasn’t finished writing

So I continued the fray

I then had a thought

A whisper

A tinge

Why must the boy stop his play?

Stop his wonder?

I felt the weight of Black Children in that moment

The way they must balance being an Adult and a Child

Why?

Why did I have to balance a similar thing?

Why?

And without thought I packed up my journals

Sat by the button

And said to myself

“I will press the button, so he can play”

I pulled out my Personal Journal

I wrote

I wrote

He played

He played

I pushed the button In between

Truthfully in a way

I broke a cultural curse today

The cycle continued until I felt an ancestral presence

A Hawk soared above

Then two

Then three

Watching the Young Writer and The Playing Child

“Look at dem birds!”

The child yelled

“Yup, that’s the ancestors”

I noted aloud

He went back to playing

I went back to writing

And pushing that button

After a while he said

“Thank you”

And I offered

“Of course”

He left

I wrote

Grateful that I let a child play without delay