The Dirigible Balloon
Poetry for Children

Thoughts of a Field Mouse Travelling in a Tilt Trap

Listen to the poem ...
I wasn’t expecting
my love of your raspberries
to end in kidnap again,
with this late evening mystery tour
inside a black plastic tunnel.

But here I am, unharmed,
listening for owls outside the trap
and fox barks under moonlight,
as you carry me oh so gently
to an undisclosed place of release.

If memory serves me right,
at some point the trap gate will open,
the tunnel will shake,
I’ll slide out into the night
and our eyes will meet under the stars.

Of course, I could get lucky

and you may not recognise me
from our last few encounters
when you set me free in damp grass
by pleasant hedges of hazel

not quite far enough from home
to foil ideas of a return
to your most excellent greenhouse,
where those juicy sweet peas
and plump raspberries

are sooo temptingly tasty ...

About the Writer


Jonathan Humble

Jonathan lives in Cumbria. His work has been published online and in print in a number of magazines and anthologies. His first collection of poetry, My Camel's Name Is Brian, was published by TMB Books in 2015. His second poetry book, Fledge came out in 2020 through Maytree Press. His poems for children have been shortlisted and highly commended in the Caterpillar and Yorkmix poetry competitions and he is the editor of The Dirigible Balloon. His poems Masterclass and This Work is Done were chosen as the Milk House Poem of the Year at the end of 2022 and 2023.