Heron Clan April 22, 2021 Fair day Sonnet 44 Dull Sub

 Fair Day


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.








Sonnet 44 by William Shakespeare

 

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,

Injurious distance should not stop my way;

For then, despite of space, I would be brought,

From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.

No matter then although my foot did stand

Upon the farthest earth remov’d from thee;

For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,

As soon as think the place where he would be.

But, ah, thought kills me, that I am not thought,

To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,

But that, so much of earth and water wrought,

I must attend time’s leisure with my moan;

Receiving nought by elements so slow

But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.

 

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