Happy Birthday Park

Today rain filled the track. It dripped from the trees and filled the concrete strip of curb. I dropped in and out of the track, avoiding the mud and the flying gravel. This dark October day the park gets ready for its birthday by taking a drizzle bath.

On the 28th of this month all the old friends of the park will come back. The tall cowboy, walking, at last, for his health, and his encouraging but sullen daughter will come back. His boots dusty and wobbly on the track. The tilt-head runner, lover of asphalt, will pass me yet again. My best friend, who looked bigger than I had thought from behind, will be there, smiling as I pass him. He didn't jog regularly and stayed big. The brown lost dog who growled and snarled at me, and his timid friend will come back. He will grin like a dog and NOT BITE! All the stray, lost dogs will come back with happy wishes.

The moms will all come back, jogging off their pregnancy pounds with their babies in their three-wheelers. The mowers will gather, the sprayers, the waterers, the trenchers, the smoothers, the trimmers under the soaring hawks, their offspring back to the nests. They will shriek and dart into the tall trees.

The saggy drug dealer and his mis-matched, college student clients out in the middle of the park, a cloud of blue candle smoke hovering over them, will pass cake and ice cream and smile broadly. Lost Dog Woman and Lost Dog Driver will tear off their anxious masks as their dog shows up, playing with his friends, ears flopping, reunited at last. The fashion show woman, tall and graceful, will stride and pivot on the concrete drainage slab that justs out into the park. Her imaginary admirers along the runway will clap and flash bright camera lights.

The woman I bonked on the head with the golf disk will come back and forgive me. All the disk and frisbe throwers and catchers will fill the broad green to sing the song. My old friend now in New York will come back and jog with me, stride by stride, and we will open a present under the elm tree. All the walkers will come back, the gardeners, sun bathers, kite flyers will come back. My daughter, running with me, and my son, loping ahead of me. They will come back.