Childhood Floods

Caught in the rain, a tempest downpour,

a fire hydrant glistens in the urban expanse,

witness to summer, to laughter and more,

in puddles we’d splash, in the joy of our dance.

I remember the days when we’d run through the streams,

like children with hopes that could never run dry,

red paint against gray, where imagination beams,

a world painted wild in the spark of the sky.

Every spray from that hydrant, a fountain of dreams,

a cascade of memories from sunshine and storms,

now it stands quiet, lost in city schemes,

a sentinel waiting while nostalgia warms.