{"id":7186,"date":"2014-08-04T09:40:27","date_gmt":"2014-08-04T13:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=7186"},"modified":"2014-08-11T11:16:38","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T15:16:38","slug":"the-balloon-walkers-master-of-the-backyard-and-pedagogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/the-balloon-walkers-master-of-the-backyard-and-pedagogue\/","title":{"rendered":"The Balloon Walkers, Master of the Backyard, and Pedagogue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Balloon<\/a><\/p>\n

The Balloon Walkers<\/strong><\/p>\n

They can be observed, suspended in air<\/p>\n

for miles around, the tiny figures<\/p>\n

dancing across a wire, poised between<\/p>\n

the bulbous royal blue spheres<\/p>\n

(a man told me once how he moved on<\/p>\n

from the loss of his wife by writing<\/p>\n

her name on a balloon and letting it go)<\/p>\n

All is fine and well for walkers until<\/p>\n

a sheer wind rose through, the barest<\/p>\n

turn and, seconds later, chutes opened<\/p>\n

skydancers dropping to some safety.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Master of the Backyard<\/strong><\/p>\n

Squeal of insect or rattle<\/p>\n

of neighbor, knocking of the tree<\/p>\n

sounds, invaders not welcome here<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t you see the posted signs?<\/p>\n

So, to the rodent, I offer impaling<\/p>\n

On the spike of my small ego.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pedagogue<\/strong><\/p>\n

He is now climbing the tree, tasting<\/p>\n

the sky, and now edging sideways<\/p>\n

out onto the slick rock, held up only<\/p>\n

by a single twig, asking about origins<\/p>\n

of waterfalls, and now reading<\/p>\n

about Dresden, now reciting Lilith myths,<\/p>\n

now standing, clapping, pontificating<\/p>\n

measuring the content of young minds,<\/p>\n

lapping the stream of consciousness<\/p>\n

like a well-dressed canine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

JD DeHart is a writer and teacher. \u00a0His writing has appeared in a number of journal publications, including Eye On Life Magazine, The Commonline Journal, and The Literary Yard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He is now climbing the tree, tasting
\nthe sky, and now edging sideways
\nout onto the slick rock, held up only
\nby a single twig<\/p>\n

READ MORE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":206,"featured_media":7600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,200,219,199,217],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7186"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/206"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7186"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7601,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7186\/revisions\/7601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}