“sad balloon floating above the world”

Upward, through a sky brushed with bruise-blue hues,  
Floats a forlorn balloon—its red, paling, fused  
With the longing of laughter grown threadbare and thin—  
A ribbon of memory trailing from chin  
To horizon, a string tugged by no eager hand,  
Just wind-worn wanderings over sea and over sand.

Below, the world hums a thousand bright tunes,  
Children whirl dizzy beneath silver moons,  
But the balloon keeps drifting—soft, silent, alone—  
Homesick for voices, for sunlight once shone  
On sticky young fingers that let its string fly,  
Not knowing, perhaps, balloons cannot cry.

It wafts over rooftops, past chimney and steeple,  
Watches the secrets of cities and people:  
A girl with a patch on her favorite old bear,  
A gardener humming through cool morning air,  
The laughter that slips out of luminous schools—  
Then silence, thin air, and the slow swirl of cool.

It dreams of a birthday, of grass bright and wild,  
Of hands that once tied it with care to a child,  
Of moments it glittered, a star at the feast—  
Now nothing to tether it, nothing, at least,  
But longing and sky, endless cobalt and blue,  
A sad little balloon with a wide world for view.

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