Causeway

The causeway sometimes brimmed with muddy water.& Torrents pushing flotsam, rushing harder. Rain incessantly drumming on the hardpack As this most every year or so. When we were kids, we played in the churning tide Until our skins turned blue and we had to go inside. We were having fun in a small midwestern town Yet it was a dangerous thing to play there, all around. We were very lucky nobody ever died, Because, danger there, lurked on every side. When I look back on those times from today, My life looks different in almost every way. I was a kid just doing the best I could. I never saw the hardships in my childhood. Nowadays it's different from back then. Now I'm more aware of where and when: Of how things are around me, bad and good; I see the dangers in my neighborhood. Causeways now mean something else to me. I see them as planned conduits to the sea. Not streams in which I can splash and play, But flood control on a rainy winter's day.