PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Fair day came, she was all a flitter,

A day in the sun with just her mother.

Her chariot, a stroller, umbrellaed and cramped,

Restrained and buckled, hunched, now encamped,

In transport too small

Her body too tall.

They saw the balloons,

In the air they would zoom,

"Oh, look another one gone up to the sky!"

"Oh, the waste of the money, oh the waste of a five."

"I want one, Mommy, I want one of my own."

"I'll get you one daughter, when we have to go home."

Their money was spent on games of chance,

Winning a few, but really, just losing the cash.

She rode the small rides, Mommy's face flashing by,

Yet, always in her mind, the balloon, how it would fly.

The day got late,

They made their way to the gate.

Mommy bought the balloon, purple, shining, and big,

Then placed the precious string in the palm of her kid.

As her little hand reached for the sky to let it go,

Mommy clamped her big paw down and startled with a, "No!"

"You can let it go at the house, but not at the fair.

"Five dollars aren't meant for a brief little affair."

So, the wailing began and ceased to desist

Until the van brought them home, at the mommy's insist.

Inside the abode, on that hot autumn day,

The little girl wiped all her tears away...

She let go finally, sailed the balloon to the ceiling,

It hit.  It bounced gaily, in a loud, latex killing.

They stood in the shards of the rubberized sphere

Purple joy dissolved swiftly into synchronized tears.

Mommy held her daughter closely,

Asked her forgiveness, mostly,

For not letting a toddler's whim

Become the greater wisdom.

To have watched that balloon fly,

To have stood, fixed to that sky,

To have let it all go, in that moment,

To have let it all go, unbroken.

To have let it all go, there-

In the flight of a balloon, you got at the fair.