The People's Park

[google images]

For the Real Toads challenge: write about a square somewhere in the world

Noon hour

chimes

in Pigeon Park,

the small square

where the residents

of Vancouver's

Downtown East Side

are surviving

another day

of living

on the edge.

On the grass,

sleepers are grateful

for the

early spring sun,

better than

winter's

concrete doorways.

They twitch and mutter

through their

haunted dreams.

On a nearby bench,

a weathered old gent

takes a long pull

from a bottle

partly hidden

in a paper bag.

He watches passersby

with a jaundiced eye,

spits loudly,

wipes his mouth on his sleeve,

stares resignedly into

the middle distance.

An elderly woman

pushes her cart,

piled high,

her life packed

 into garbage bags,

lots of warm things

against the

nighttime chill.

A starving dog

with matted fur
and defeated eyes

noses the litter

around a garbage can,

flinching at any
sudden movement.

The pigeons for whom

the park is named

strut, cooing and bobbing,

all around the

concrete square.

An elderly gent with

a surviving twinkle in his eye

tosses them bread crusts

and smiles as they flutter close.

A squirrel perches alertly

on the back of a park bench,

watching the man,

eyeing the bread,

calculating his chances.

The man holds out

a crust, stays still.

The squirrel pauses,

skitters forward,

stops again,

then bounds nimbly over,

snatches the bread

from his fingers and

races off,
tail aloft,
cheeks bulging
with his prize.

The people

in the people's park

meet each other's eyes,

and smile.

A small moment of kindness,

of mercy,

of connection

lifts their hearts,

that are

so ready to be lifted.

Just a little hope
to make it
through
another day,
alive,
on Planet Earth.

[image from walrusmagazine.com]