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Caterpillar's Life
Haworth Hodgkinson
The caterpillar,
living in a jam jar,
ate leaves to dispel
the urge to wriggle
and cause earthquakes
in Australia.
Smooth-skinned,
he preferred shiny leaves,
but ate what he was given.
One day he stopped eating
and hid in a chrysalis tent.
For a week
we wondered what he was doing.
Then on Sunday,
half way through Desert Island Discs
(the castaway was some explorer
who had been the first
to cross the Antarctic
in a caravan),
we noticed the tent was unzipped.
We watched in amazement
as the caterpillar crawled out
and ate more leaves.
Written 2004
Revised 2005
Published in
Spinners and Spoons, 2005
(Koo Press)
and in
A Weakness for Mermaids, 2007
(Koo Press)
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