The Eagle and the Child

on the Poetry Bus

I can't quite believe that I've written this. It was a brilliant and original prompt (to take a pub name and from it create characters for a story - preferably rhymed) by Poetikat which excited - and finally defeated - me. Not at all my usual sort of endeavour, but that was a large part of its fascination. Hopefully, I will have learned something from it - maybe from the comments?

I tell the tale
of a bird of prey
and a child who met
by a lake one day.
Both were shy
and with nothing to say -
just a child by a lake
and the bird of prey.

The bird was gentle
and far from wild -
or so it seemed
to the trusting child
who saw in feathers
a place to hide,
in powerful wings
a call to ride.

They flew for ever,
flew far and high,
beyond the rainbow,
above the sky,
to a place where life
is light and free
and devoid of weight
or gravity,

a land too wondrous
to be quite true,
where rubbish food
is good for you,
where kids are more
than adult size
and adults think
them 'fab' and wise.

There, as they soared
above a stream
of ice and chillies
and juice and cream,
the eagle at last
had run out of steam
and dropped the child
from its happy dream.

Down he fell,
where they'd been before
to land with a bump
on the bedroom floor.
His parents tucked him
back into bed
deaf to the novel
stashed in his head.