By Ishmael von Heidrick- Barnes

 

On weekends
children swing in sandboxes
families picnic on green hillside
grilling meat
drinking beer from cans in brown paper shrouds

Blindfolded birthday boys
strike piñatas
spilling
sun-wrapped sweets
onto lawn

Neighborhood residents
walk dogs
Pit Bulls      Pekinese      Poodles
propping hind legs
against pepper trees

Young couples
in search of seclusion
spread out on blankets
clueless to loved ones
rolling underneath entangled limbs

I know–
it took me 45 years
sinking feet into soil
to find the eastern edge of park
and my second great-granduncle

His name carved in marble
lying face up
rain slowly
erasing last
words

Somewhere under a jogger’s shoe prints
or high school lovers
loving

Victor J. Chamagne:
born September 14, 1831
Louisville, Kentucky
Confederate soldier
steam boat engineer
has been dying to tell his descendants
about the 52 year old man
who married
a Louisiana lady half his age
retired to San Diego
loved to death
by “the belle of New Orleans.”

Here lies Victor
and God knows how many more
San Diego pioneers
haunting a city
bulldozing its roots into parks