Untitled

Snow goose

Swoops

Over the cold lighthouse.

Wings flapping

White

Like the page of an empty book.

Beak sharp as a pen.

Look into the sky.

See the snow goose.

Hear its lonely cry.

The goose can see Fritha

Running down the pebbled street

Tears streaming.

Soldiers in Dunkirk

Rescued

By a small person

In the wide sea.

“We do not write in order to be understood,” said the poet Cecil Day Lewis. “We write in order to understand.” I think we can also say that we read (or listen) in order to understand.To understand not only the world around us but also our innermost selves. Madeleine Hughes listens to the story of The Snow Goose and understands its painful, lonely cry as it flies across the sky with a beak “as sharp as a pen”. As sharp as the pen Madeleine is pushing across the empty page as she writes. Alone like the snow goose. Alone like little Fritha, “the small personin the wide sea”.

Look at the confident simplicity of her vocabulary. You can’t go wrong with language this clear: we feel we are in good hands. “Wings flat. Fritha runs”. The reader holds her breath. This is a compelling poem radiant with humanity and wonder.

Finally, a lighthearted puzzle. There is three errers in this sentence. Can you find them? (And is looking for them a bit like reading a sentence of poetry - that sense that it holds a secret the reader must puzzle to unlock... ?) Selima Hill

Madeleine Hughes receives The Oldest Girl in the World by Carol Ann Duffy (Faber). Her poem was submitted by Christine Robinson. Selima Hill, TESguest poet for the current term, won this year’s Whitbread poetry prize for Bunny. She is a tutor for the Poetry School and the South Bank Centre, and is currently working on her eighth collection, Portrait of my Lover as a Horse. Please send poems, no longer than 20 lines, to Friday magazine, Admiral House, 66-68 East Smithfield, London E1W 1BX. Include the poet’s name, age and address, the name of the submitting teacher and the school address. Or email: friday@tes.co.uk