Natsume Park
This is Natsume Park, a small park a few minutes’ walk north of my apartment. I feel sorry for Nastume Park because it is largely abandoned and forgotten, tucked away among close-packed houses. A generation shift plus a chronic low birth rate mean there are very few children in the immediate vicinity to play there. The children are gone. Their laughter is only a faint echo, or maybe just a memory. The equipment is unused and forgotten. The ground is overgrown. The drinking fountain no longer gurgles. The air buzzes only with the chirruping of summer insects. I like to visit it sometimes, like a Secret Garden, to remind it that it is not forgotten. But I still feel sad. I imagine young lovers using it as a convenient meeting place.