The Dirigible Balloon
Poetry for Children

Fog

Today the world
is meditating,
she doesn’t want
to be disturbed.

She has covered
everything up –
the blocks of flats,
the trees in the park,

brought the clouds
down to the ground
so the people walk
through rain dust.

She can only see
just ahead. Like us,
she’s taking things
one step at a time.

When the buildings
reappear across the river,
the reflected sun
on their windows,

I’ll know the world
has finished
her morning’s thinking.
She has her answer.

About the Writer


Lorraine Mariner

Lorraine is a librarian at the National Poetry Library, London, where she loves working with the children’s poetry collection. She has had children’s and YA poems published in Dragons of the Prime, an anthology of dinosaur poems from The Emma Press (2019) and in the magazines Tyger Tyger and Paper Lanterns. She’s also had poems shortlisted and commended in the YorkMix Children’s Poetry Competition in 2019 and 2021.