Public Comment

The university fenced off part of People's Park this week to "test the soil", or so they say, for their proposed sixteen stories of concrete. It's hard not to wonder what lab they will use that can tell them that the soil is Ohlone land. That it's full of the blood of those who fought for it and the tears of those who mourned them. That the patch of asphalt in the west end was left there deliberately to highlight its surrounding transformation into a garden worked by generations of hearts and hands.

What lab will tell them that the soil is laden with the ashes of many for whom the park was always home with a hearth full of welcome, and thus a perfect resting place. The soil is leavened with the petals of flowers that fell away from wreaths tangled in the long hair of dancing men and women and massaged with fifty years of native drums, African house music, and rock and roll. The soil is littered with the finest poetry charging like lions from the lips of hearts on fire.

What lab will tell them that the soil is dense with the powerful prayers of thanks as strangers bent to lend hands to strangers and cooks reached to offer hot plates of steaming food. That the soil is full of the alchemy of musicians who invented joy out of thin air and artists who wove sunlit moments into mass, accidental epiphanies.

The lab will surely find the seeds of the next rebellion, and the next, and the next, and the next. And see the necessity most of us hope never to mourn that the park remain magical, irreplaceable open space, a crucible of the historic forces that stopped a war and built a garden.