Something About a Balloon
By John Herlihy

Something about a balloon
That drives everyone mad.
The children run helter-skelter
In some frantic happiness clad.
Little elves that were once good
Have now suddenly turned bad.
They run and jump and cry out
As though suddenly turned mad.
Running about, they hear nothing.
If you say anything, they turn sad.
The balloon now escapes them,
Soaring aloft into the open sky;
But gets snarled in the branches,
Out of reach just a little too high.
The mad children climb the limbs
Of the old, season-weathered tree.
As I watch the hysteria on the side
This separate world outside of me.
Up the aged tree the mad kids climb,
The colored balloon an object sublime.
Blending now aloft in the blue dome,
As I sit back at ease in my happy home.