In the run up to National Poetry Day I am featuring poems by children’s poets on this years NPD theme – Freedom!
This one is from John H Rice, a former primary school headteacher who writes educational materials for children – and poems!
Hatchling
Once, this was
All: a perfect cell
Of protection.
Now, hazed light
Calls through muted
Translucence and she
Twists upon herself
To escape her
Fragile confinement.
She strikes the shell
Intermittently,
Rests,
Strikes
Again:
This birth
Is her own.
Sound
Breaks from shadows,
Light splinters…
And the world
Emerges.
© J H Rice
Poetry Roundabout 