What did they say to the children?
Go to the town square and play !
Oh, glorious riot of clamorous din,
of jostle and swearing,
and singing and shouting…
they race and they leap-frog,
twirl dizzy and stumble,
eyes shining…cheeks blushed.
Bring on the rough…
and bring on the tumble!
Yet there are spaces
for reflecting calm…
solitary children,
complete in happiness,
study bird wings
sculpt red clay
fly rag kites
blow a pale balloon
from the bladder of a pig.
I lose my self in paintings,
especially this one by Bruegel,
…enter whole within the moment
and leave its childhood…reluctantly.
Bonnie Marshall
Go ahead dear Reader…join the games. Which child would you be? The Wikipedia site…below…shows details from the painting.
Proem... 
https://soundcloud.com/user524561127/ark-in
Thank you!
Transported! Telaported? definitely delighted…
Glad to hear that…the “Children’s Games (Breugel)” site at Wikipedia details almost each game.
That’s a great Wikipedia article on the painting. I can see how you can lose yourself in this picture and produce a beautiful poem from it. I think I would be playing marbles :-). Nobody plays this any more do they?
Perhaps somewhere away from i-Things where adults don’t prohibit marbles as something evilly capitalistic.
I too am a Breughel fan. There is such detail and energy in his paintings, and you capture that playful energy beautifully in the first stanza. When art imitates art…
There’s such detail in Bosch…yet that is so much darker and not nearly as fun. Thanks, Sally.