The Newborn Penguin Chick

Cold, small and hungry, I huddled and called,

The white swirling pellets, they coated my body,

Never would I have known, inside my egg,

The glacial world outside, its descending cold,

Never would I have known, snuggled in my shell,

The calls of others, penetrating the chill like beaks slicing fish,

Never would I have known, safe and warm in my own house,

How luck can turn on me, like the regurgitation of my fishy dinner,

Never would I have known, hiding in my temporary home,

The hardships of a newborn penguin chick.



This world is all white, like the feathers on my tummy,

There are other beings like me, but they all have their own ways,

They flock together and journey together, like clusters of snow around me,

Yet I am alone, togetherness gone, insignificant and hidden away,

With less authority than the fish others bring back for dinner.

Never would I have known, hidden in a blur of feathers,

Where this dinner comes from, maybe it is a taboo land,

Never would I have known, huddled safely away from the winds,

How the others get to the land, and why they come back wet like dinner,

Never would I have known, for I am just a newborn penguin chick.



There is the white, but perhaps there is a hidden side,

Like the black feathers on my back, that only show when I turn around,

Maybe there is another part of life, a secret one that exists as an opposite,

How must it be to live just as a reflection, like in an ice pond,

Where others dictate your life, just as they do mine?

Never would I have known, tucked away securely,

What these other penguins have done for me, what has been done for them,

Never would I have known, never straying from my dome-like home,

The push-me-pull-you side of life, like the feathers on my back,

Never would I have known, not wondering or pondering away from what I need,

How my tummy and back contrast, like the snow and the secret land,

Never would I have known, this amazing world of mine.



Never would I have known, when no-one has told me anything but what I need,

The realms of fantasy, ability, struggles, quests - just for me, just for the young ones,

Never would I have known, when nobody dared take me journeying,

The soft yet monotonous crunching of snow, like the continued, never-varying calls of others,

Never would I have known, when I have lived excluded from the world's wonders,

The joys of sliding on snow, like a toboganning seal, yet the exhaustion at the bottom of the hill,

Never would I have known, since nobody has ever told me,

Why life is so secret, so odd, so perplexing to the newborn penguin chick.



There is dinner, yes, there is life, being, existence,

We have our fish, our fodder, our lifeforce,

But they continually troop back to the magical territory,

We want our dessert, we want more,

Never satisfied, we want not our needs but our ideals,

And never would I have known this, had I never ventured away,

That a penguin doesn't want his needs, or need his wants,

Never would I have known, had exploration been barred,

That mates, food, life and flow are all that we need, but never our desire,



Never would I have known that we want more - we want fun.

I am a newborn penguin, I know that I am young and naive,

Yet I am satisfied with that, I don't want my fish salted,

But penguins are never satisfied with what the flow of life has provided,

Penguins strive to get the best existence can provide,

And though I have never aimed to find perfection,

I find its brethren satisfaction and content just living penguin life as it ought to be,

For although I have struggled the hardships of chickhood,

I have grown inside, and although I am only of tiny stature,

Inwardly I am not a penguin, I am a giant.