Park and Recreation Month — which is obviously the best month in the park and recreation profession, just wrapped up at the end of July, and I’m excited to share one of the many things we did this year on today’s episode. This year for Park and Recreation Month, in partnership with New York Times bestselling author Kwame Alexander, we created a community poem — one poem compiled from many voices, about what parks and recreation means to people.

We asked members of the park and recreation community to submit original poems about parks and recreation, and Kwame took pieces from each poem and combined them into one single community poem, titled, “Everything Around You…” So, I thought it would be fun to unveil the poem on a special edition of the podcast today.

You can hear Kwame read the final community poem on this episode, as well as read the full text of the poem in the description. You also can see Kwame read the poem if you are planning to join us at the 2021 NRPA Annual Conference in Nashville this September.

Thank you to everyone who submitted to our community poem this July, and a huge thank you to Kwame Alexander for using his incredible talents to help bring everyone’s voices together into one beautiful collective message.

Everything Around You: Our Park and Recreation Story

You arrive and everything around you is green:

The trees, the flowers, the very soil that feeds this planet and that's just the start.

All day everything around you is performing a classic symphony of breathtaking outdoor beauty grounded in the magnificence of wild simplicity in picturesque form:

bison, coyotes, swans, eagles a mama duck prodding her ducklings a sunbathing frog the Lady Slipper anxious squirrels wrestling for their fair share of forbidden fruit.

This is your place.

A sanctuary of hammockers battered straw hats picnic blankets labradoodles and pugs toddlers and mums in blue and red frocks, the gardener weeding in mismatched socks.

Everything around you is alive and well and it occurs to you that you're part of something bigger that when you step into a park it feels so good to congregate with family and friends to walk through woods to take a pulse check—slow down, breathe clean air to be one on one with the sun syncing life's rhythm inside you.

A day like today you simply can't stay inside.

Though rain may fall, on the trail you'll glide.

Everything around you is quiet and chill.

Days like today you don't want to be still.

Everything around you is history Days like today will never grow old.

O, in my soul I am a child again

I am nine years old The paths are covered in brown leaves They're crunchy! The air smells beautiful.

O, in my soul I am free again.

I am fifteen. Running to baseball practice a few minutes late again. Coach smiles pats my shoulder. An osprey flies by O look he has gone fishing.

Everything around you is a bridge—connecting you to nature, to neighbors, to yourself.

Everything around you is home. A place we've always dreamed about: sustainable systems supporting economies crossing boundaries solving problems a sense of belonging growing community a sense of belonging.

Everything around you is a story is a fallen tree is a soaring heron is a lazy river is a drumbeat of dragonfly wings is purple and blue hues is a paintbrush palette of botanical shades is mountain air, glass mirror lakes, and open skies is the cold gray of the past year. is heartbreak is lockdown is love is nature anticipating is tranquil peace is poetic meditation is no more class is children playing in summer is hiking is heat is hope is family reunion.

This. Is. Your. Place.

To live to learn to work to farm to play with everything around you.

A Community Poem compiled by Kwame AlexanderFor the National Recreation and Park AssociationAugust 2021