Sunday Cleaning

It was a morning for singing.  The area around my apartment complex was teeming with Japanese residents; it was the Sunday of the month to take care of the grounds.  Everywhere people carried brooms and rakes and bags filled with leaves and other debris.  The bikes in the shed had been straightened and the concrete swept clean, beautiful and orderly.  The stray leaves from under the trees were disappearing and the moss was emerging, clean and smooth.  The gutters were opened and being scrubbed, the weeds picked from the walls and ground of the playground.  The garbage areas were scrubbed, the netting used to keep out crows and cats neatly folded, waiting for the next garbage day.  It is a chore, an obligation they have to the apartment residents' association, but I can't help but want the same obligation.  How nice to have to spend a Sunday morning caring for a common space with one's neighbors.  Maybe one day, here or in another place, I'll have the pleasure.