From Tears in the Fence 52

PLAYGROUND

These fractures are days, when
birds climb the stairs of their songs
towards plane-pierced clouds
and the additional tastes of air.

Runners guide their shadows past but
their shadows are wearing the grass.
A statement is taking shape, outside us:
something these strangers participate in.
The children in the trees, parents on their
phones holding bags full of empty picnic
things. A frisbee is describing an ellipse,
a blackbird side-steps towards a crisp.

The playground still in operation, like
a factory; its’ wheels, productions.
Metals being strained, pushed,
pistons compressed and dies stamped.

So much of us is built on children’s
unrecorded labors and negotiations.
Emancipation is won on the slide
but kicked back on the swings.

As a few trees raise their fists,
a cloud disperses like a crowd.

Seagulls snow-storm the playing field.
The ring-road tightens and the trees’
crown of crows lifts, and falls.

© Giles Goodland 2010