Splash of cornflower blue paint
Forget-me-nots on a purple string
Crushed wings of violets folded
Softly trembling behind the rubber
Glossy surface of my dusky blue balloon
My small hands wrap round
Touch its winding ribbons
The balloon bounces up and down
Tugging at my arm… I feel happy
Slightly giddy after my 8th birthday
I hold on to the balloon’s string
Curled in a tangled sinuous line
I cling to smoky dreams wrapped
In the balloon’s rubber tinsel
Packaged in its ash blue oval
And suddenly I let go
My balloon careens
Disappearing… hiding…
In gray-snow clouds
Reappearing in the fog
My small frame crumbles
Aches beneath my grief
I wonder in what mossy clover
Or under what leafy roof
My balloon found shelter
I long to know where it
Would fly or if it would build
A home up on a blue cloud
In the rose-blush sky long
Long after my hand released it
I imagine my balloon
Ash blue ice cream scoop
Melting in toasted air
Ice dissolving puddle-warm
On a parched tongue
Perhaps it landed
Among the cornflowers
Tossed by the winnowing wind
Or is rolling soft beside creaking
Wheels of run-down wheelbarrows
I wipe my tears and try
Hard to smile as I look up
Searchingly at the sky
I know my balloon is there
Springing light on sugar spun clouds
It is somewhere far away
Gently basking in the sun
Or playing on a swing
In buttermilk playgrounds so far
So lovely… my tiny piece of heaven…