The Airborne Girl

A gentle girl, her eyes as pearls,
And face becalmed a loving kiss;
Her hair uptied in fetching twirls:
Why should she deserve this?

For like a leaf in autumn breeze
She floats upon the flitting gust
And sails above the rustling trees
So high I fear it seems unjust.

The crowd below can’t understand
How little Gail can float so high,
They chase and chase a route unplanned
With heads upturned to clouded sky.

Their shouts upon the air do soar,
As loud and shrill as pigs can squeal;
Perhaps they cannot take much more
Of this most frightening ordeal…

The village parson shouts aloud:
‘Now we’re almost into the Town,
And look how Gail sinks from that cloud
She surely soon is touching down!’

A second gust does lift a chill
And all the people’s laboured sigh
Now pushes her yet higher still:
Her mother gulps and now she cries.

The moral told above is so:
If children think they know it all
You’re best to let them go,
For if they prove you wrong and all
You’ll feel so small below!

Feedback submitted by Sue Simpson at sooz.006@virgin.net on 28th July 2002

Hey! Paul me old mukka, a fellow cross-over, I won't tell if you don't :-) I read this and never tripped or stumbled once. Lovely flow and accessible to both kid's and adults. it's not partronising as children's writing often is. But I'm shocked ...nothing horrific, or perverse or twisted happened to her (well apart from turning into a giant balloon). Are you feeling all right? Do you need to open pour, be yourself once more? Where has this softer side of Hansbury come from? Are there two PH's? Surely not. You could draw this at dawn after ten paces, and face gommie ... I wouldn't like to say which of you would be shot. Nice one.

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