By Peter Venable
fountains spray rainbow arcs as
kids crawl, waddle, scurry,
squeal, giggle, squirt blasters,
empty pails on one another.
A child, cornrowed and diapered,
steps on and off a geyser, squash-spurt,
squash-spurt, enraptured. Emma squats
and laughs under a mushroom waterfall
as moms, dads, and grands
hawk-eye their hatchlings when he,
eighty-plus, water-balloon jowled, says
“Never saw such a gathering back then,”
wiping his sunglasses, “might had hoses
propped in their backyards.” Children skim round
the spray ground. A boy darts under the shelter,
and I turn to his burly dad, sporting braids.
He wraps and towels his son.
“We’re having a peek into heaven.”
Peter Carrington Venable just released his newest book of poetry, “Jesus through a Poet’s Lens,” available on Amazon. He is a retired addiction and mental health clinician and a member of Winston-Salem Writers. His poem, “I Wonder As They Wander,” won a gold medal in the 2022 Senior Games/SilverArts literary competition.