The Ball Poem by John Berryman

The Ball Poem

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,
What, what is he to do? I saw it go
Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then
Merrily over--there it is in the water!
No use to say 'O there are other balls':
An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy
As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down
All his young days into the harbour where
His ball went. I would not intrude on him,
A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now
He senses first responsibility
In a world of possessions. People will take balls,
Balls will be lost always, little boy,
And no one buys a ball back. Money is external.
He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes,
The epistemology of loss, how to stand up
Knowing what every man must one day know
And most know many days, how to stand up
And gradually light returns to the street
A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight,
Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark
Floor of the harbour . . I am everywhere,
I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move
With all that move me, under the water
Or whistling, I am not a little boy.
--John Berryman

Lizbeth's class is doing a unit on balls. Her teacher asked us all to send some balls to school for them to sort, experiment with, compare, etc. I thought that the teacher might want to see or use some of our other ball toys, but might not want me to send them ALL to school. So here is a sampling of our ball toys

1. Ball and stick magnet building sets with marble sized ball bearings
2. Mega Bloks Ball and stick magnet building set with tennis ball sized balls We also have a roller coaster for the big magnetic balls.
3. Discovery Toys Marbleworks Marble Race Game
4. Marble Mania Galaxy - Electric ball roller coaster for balls slightly bigger than marbles. This is glow in the dark and shoots the balls up a rocket to get to the top. Not my video, but it is the same set we have
5. Chaos Toy - Electric ball roller coaster for balls slightly smaller than ping pong balls. This is about 6 feet tall and is fully customizable with all kinds of different ways to put it together. It's good for experimenting with to find just the right angle for bouncing balls, etc. The video is not mine, but is the same set that we have.
6. Indoor golf holes and clubs
7. Marble race type games for golf ball sized balls. One is wooden and the balls go around on static ramps before ringing a bell at the bottom. The other can switch which order the plastic ramps go on.
8. Lots of Bakugan - Balls that transform into robots and Zoobles - Balls that transform into cute animals and a fun treehouse that the Zoobles can roll and play in
9. Fisher Price Stacking and Nesting ball toy. It has ten half spheres that connect in several different ways
10. Tumble Tower - This is another old Fisher Price toy with a bunch of marbles going through an obsticle course to get from the top to the bottom.
11. A large collection of Fisher Price Roll Arounds balls (each one has a different moving toy inside the clear ball) and accessories Gumball Machine Here's Bridget playing with the gumball machine when it had batteries Caterpillar pull toy Ball Monster Tree House
12. Ball and hammer toy
13. Ball Ski Jump Chair

While I was looking for some of the older videos, I found these that show why we have so many ball toys Lizbeth gets a strike while bowling her first time Lizbeth says, "Roll Ball" Lizbeth plays ball ski jump on Mama's legs Lizbeth plays with Afterdark Lizbeth makes noises with a ball Lizbeth plays a first game And Bridget likes balls too