ISLAND PARK

for Jens Jensen

Imagine a playground

with bubblers and swings

and a diamond for boys

to play there by day and

by night under lights, a park made

into a natural island by a circular

ring of river water, named by Indians

when this land was entirely wild,

in a space now large enough for wandering

and exploring, to find things,

and more importantly to find one’s self,

that would first come to life here,

a child’s first glimpse of heaven on earth,

unaware that his journey had begun —

arranged for him by a solitary man

who would never be met to say

how he had created this wonder,

using nature’s stones and plants and

native prairie trees into a pattern

invisibly made, a mystery to the untrained eye,

created with the child in mind,

who would never suspect that it wasn’t

made by God, but by an actual person

who designed it and then disappeared,

once and for all, leaving his own good for us,

without our thank you or his goodbye.