we parked beyond the street

people have taken as a tent village

that is another story of complexity

this one is focused on the beauty of

a single event but smaller even than that

though joy and rainbows and inclusion and

celebration of belonging are not small but

large and pulsing with life and possibility

I was there to witness and being a sentient

organism felt a multitude of emotions in

this aftermath of mysterious unwellness

I did briefly bar from my day’s awareness

all was colour and warmth and music and

rhythm and dance and extraversion yet

the focus of my memory while I sit quiet

now in the shade of magnolia blossoms with

my Charles de Lint novel is the image of

a small girl in her purple dress

in one hand gripping a pink carnation and

with her other hand waving waving waving

to all the painted smiling passersby🪶