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At an afterschool program in a rough Yonkers neighborhood, the children typically spent their free time outdoors in the parking lot on fair-weathered afternoons.
One day, two students picked leaves and grass and the odd flower from an incongruous bit of green encroaching on the disrupted pavement around a rotted out stump. One young girl took my arm and pointed to the stone wall topped with iron bars and railings, which enclosed their unequipped playground.
"Do you know why that's there?" she said; "Somebody was shot. They died." Then, without further explanation, she took some more grass back to her makeshift garden on the greenless end of the parking lot.
The children were not oblivious to the world beyond the protective fence, nor were they unaware of what was lacking in the small lot where they played.
They sought earth-space. They longed for an environment that could sustain life; sustain peace.
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