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Every sunny afternoon
They appear like lily pads
Round and gleaming,
Floating on public space.
Hipsters, millennials,
moms with babies,
a picnic blanket invasion;
Woodstock without bands.
At night, this park once
was occupied by armies
of tiny soccer players
and their parent generals.
It was always a fight –
to get them here,
to keep them on the field
to get them home.
But now: a long truce;
the only projectiles:
Frisbees; the smoke:
fruity vape clouds.
On these greens, memories
of the commons; of when
pubs were truly public.
A lost time of shared space.
Are these blanket parties
a pandemic Brigadoon?
Seen once in an era,
only to disappear?
Or can the memory of
this civic oasis last,
longer than vape smoke,
longer than a dream?
Rev. Stephen Milton
July 4, 2020.