Outside Recess

Children's cries and screams rang down Avon Street, echoing off the playground pavement at Peabody Elementary School. Winter's relentless wind exhausted, outside recess was allowed. Small feet, sizes 3 and 4, drive their heels into the newly laid playground gravel resting under the rusted aluminum slide. Scaring up clouds of chalky white dust, parting the rocks into a circle of dirt. Immune to the fenced cage that corrals them, eyes that watch over their games. No worries, no worries. Just put the ball through the hoop, and don't be the last one to say "not it." A poet once wrote, youth is wasted on the young, but the children won't hear any of that, because their laughter always drowns it out.