Seeing it now, you’d think
It had always been that way:
The metal rigid fence
Lapping round where children play.
But it wasn’t always there.
When my children were too small,
To climb the rocket steps
No bars stood sentinel, at all.
They could run into the park
A thousand different ways-
And then back out again:
Different paths, for different days.
Now a gate screeches out and in
Onto the path,
Up to the swings.
Up to the rocket,
Up to the slide.
Into their freedoms
and out…again.
There’s not many left
Who remember the fence-free days
When they could run in and out
At least a thousand ways.
Forgotten in a generation
How they ran freely over that hill
To keep them safe, they justified.
Ah! That sugar-coated pill.
Another freedom lost
To summers gone by.