The Park -- Part One

Pigeons flutter in the park eating refuse from the grass. Noon comes; the hours pass. Leaves fall; the sky grows dark. Silence reigns throughout the park. A crumpled headline, forgotten toy -- and then, -- and then a far-off bark. In the park, not a single little boy. Midnight comes; the hours go -- and now the sky begins to glow... morning breaks, and with it, sound. Thus begins the morning round. White skeletons of benches -- slats -- in all the wintry parks of Age fill up in morning. Deserted flats, each with the aspect of a cage, become an unused, waiting gauge to measure dull and wasted years -- floods of loneliness -- rivers of fears. The weak and battered, pallid crowd that, daily, parks ingest speak in muted tones; but loud are the messages all suggest. The clangor of the beaten Belles, trampled by the weight of years, entreats the mind to change its gaze -- still it sees, as in a daze. Memories, perhaps, keep active still the shriveled loosened flaps that are the mouths of all the Bills -- reduced to gray and ugly gaps... Down the graveled pathways come children bent on carefree play. Belles, though silent, are not dumb, nor will the Bills forego their say. But lessons fall on ears too deaf; around are eyes too blind to see. All the tots, too young for Death, play on and on till time for tea. Day after day after day children run, children play. Pigeons flutter in the park. Leaves fall; the sky grows dark. Again, deep silence claims the park. Midnight hours come and go. The sky again assumes a glow. The wind stirs dead leaves to rustle. Starts again the aimless bustle of the battered, weak, infirm-eyed: those whom living failed -- who died but still must play their signal role of unloved, friendless, unhailed, Old. They gather daily in the park to envy tots their vital spark: the hope, the promise in their eyes -- before it fades, before it dies. Tots at play -- so young, so bold -- must laugh and sing -- cannot be told that youth's not long, that Time is cold, that Time devours -- a ravenous beast. And men are the courses at his feast. Some he swallows in their prime; on some he waits too long a time. These midnight morsels, Time's rancid snack, explore their memories. They hie them back to that old moment, deepest black, when they first knew -- and first said -- Time's the master all men dread. (Please read The Park -- Part Two, which is a continuation of this poem...due to space limitations)