Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles

What could be better than bubbles?
I remember hours spent as a young girl blowing bubbles in gram's backyard. Or, chasing them into the sunlight, perfect rainbow orbs with in my grasp, then POP! as someone else (usually my mom) blew them across the lawn.
Bubbles are fun.
Bubbles are . . . magic.
This evening, we broke out the bubbles. Daniel squeaked with delight and laughed from deep in his belly as he watched the bubbles, his eyes almost as big as they were. Josiah jumped and danced and jigged this way and that, trying to catch them, then trying to POP! them.
If you look in a bubble, floating in the air, you can see yourself. You can see the sky, and the things around you. They all have this rainbow tint. And your nose looks so big. It will make you laugh. You can see everything as it is, right in that moment, just a little. . . different. Smaller. Then, it floats away.
The boys and I read a poem about bubbles in a children's book of poems we got from the library last week. It's called Plum, by Tony Mitton and it is delightfully illustrated by Mary GrandPre'. There is a poem in it called "Bubble Songs." It goes like this:

1.
If you blow
I will grow
to a trembling ball.

I'm a bubble of breath
in a shinning shawl.

If you lift
I will drift
like a wisp of the air.

Then I'll burst with a gasp
and I'm simply not there.

2.
I am only a bubble,
the ghost of a ball.

If I'm caught
then I'm naught,
I am nothing at all.

I am only a bubble,
a shimmering sphere.

If I land on your hand
I shall soon disappear.

The boys and I love this poem. Especially the line about a bubble being the ghost of a ball.
Crazy, how a little soap and some time together can transform an ordinary afternoon into extraordinary playtime, and a regular old backyard into an enchanted wonderland.