(A Found Poem Based on William Golding’s novel “Lord of the Flies”, pg. 7-90)
The slow swing from dawn to quick dusk
The pleasures of morning, the bright sun, the whelming sea and sweet air
Stark colors of the morning were smoothing in pearl and opalescence
The glittering sea rose up, moved apart in planes of blatant impossibility
Water drew to a point at infinity
Beyond that the open sea was dark blue
Perspectives of beach and palm tree
The white surf flunked on a coral reef
The shore was fledged with palm trees reclined, against the light
Their green feathers were a hundred feet up in the air
It was bright with the efflorescence of the tropical weed and coral
The tangled reflections quivered
Darkness poured out, submerging the ways between the trees
Dim and strange as the bottom of the sea
The trickle of smoke sketched a chalky line up the solid blue sky
As if something’s behind you all the time in the jungle
The smoke drifted away, thickening, and a tiny flame appeared
The flames, as though they were a kind of wild life, crept as a jaguar creeps
They flung themselves down in the shadows that lay among the shattered rocks
Beneath them, on the unfriendly side of the mountain, the drum roll continued
Echoes and birds flew
White and pink dust floated
The air was thick with butterflies
Lifting, fluttering, settling
And spilled lavishly among the canopy of the forest.
And then the island was still.
