Welcome. This lawn is restricted to picnics and passive recreation. Please be courteous and respectful to others, and keep the park clean. Rules prohibit:
Active sports
Dogs and pets
Amplified sound
Barbecues and open fires
Illegal drugs and alcohol
Littering and glass bottles
I am pondering the phrase passive recreation. I have walked by this sign for almost eight years but only noticed it for the first time last week. Apparently, I can admire the trees while sitting on the lawn but if I stood and performed jumping jacks, this would be prohibited. If I wrote a poem I could tell people that I had written it as an exercise in passive recreation. I don’t think one would be allowed to move very quickly either. Walking might be OK but running would be considered active. I am considering how the creation of such space in a public park corresponds to the creation in one’s mind of quiet, private areas. This seems to be one of my ongoing jobs as a poet: to continually create such space in order to be able to write and have a poem connect to the world at large.
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