On This Park Bench Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

Here on this park bench sits,
A memory as old as the bench,
For it is here that my mother,
Met my father and entered into,
The life that begot me.

Little did they know they had,
Started a chain reaction of love,
For now generation after generation,
We have married women we meet on
Park benches, without sitting with
Them on family pews in church,
For this thing called love defies,
Even the rules of Pope Sir Francis,
The most radical of them all.

What wood made this bench that has us,
Tied to its own radical history?
Go ask the priest how much he paid,
For the cassock he wears, and you
Will know the answer. For my mother
Will tell me where she first kissed
My father, if not on this park bench.

For I like the story of lovers making
Me, on a park bench. It is a wild story
Of flowers, and gardens my children would
Love, and then carry on the tradition
Of citizens who voted yes to life,
On this park bench