THE BALLOON

Poster for 'Le Ballon Rouge'

In 1956, French film-maker Albert Lamorisse directed a short but enchanting film entitled ‘Le Ballon Rouge’ (‘The Red Balloon’), which featured a small Parisian boy (played by the director’s own son, Pascal) who encountered a large red balloon that seemed to have a life and will of its own. Tragically, a gang of bullies saw the boy with it, pursued them, and finally burst the balloon, only for a host of other balloons all over Paris to break free of their strings and rescue the boy by lifting him up into the sky and carrying him safely away on a breathtaking flight above the rooftops of the city. I saw this poignant but delightful film as a child, when it was shown on British television during the late 1960s, and its magic remained with me long afterwards, giving me the idea for a children’s poem about a balloon, but written as if it were almost a living entity.

THE BALLOON

Like an animated bubble
Bobbing gaily through the sky,
Nodding happily to cloudlets
As it gently dances by.

Spinning swiftly o’er the meadows,
Just a merry, bouncing clown,
Bowing joyfully to Heaven
As it spirals up and down.

Soon it whirls amidst the woodlands,
Here a gaudy, twirling sphere
Rolling slowly down the branches
Like a bright, gigantic tear.

Then some splinters stroke it softly
As around the trees it wends,
But their fond embrace is fatal,
And its life is at an end –

Bursting loudly into pieces;
But, as hours so swiftly pass,
Who will miss a merry bubble
Lying dead amongst the grass?