Unknown Island

Poem #03

You begin as a colour,

Not quite blue,

As distant from definition

As from the continent,

And on that borrowed line,

Between the rolling dunes of the ocean

And the dream vapour,

The silent actors of clouds,

You acquire form, character, presence.

You grow out of midtones,

Ignorant of architecture

With your own prehistoric geometry.

I see you as a monstrous iguana

Slumbering like the dead

On the surface of the water.

Because ugliness is in the heart of the beholder,

I consciously expand my appreciation of beauty

Beyond the limit of its elasticity

Its plasticity

Until it is soft and pliable.

I wrap it around you

Like so much white string

On a brown parcel.

Your one facing eye

Threatens to open.

You have broadened.

I can now see nothing but you,

White waves like geysers on your shores,

Your high back caressed by low-hanging cloud,

And a trickle of houses and pylons at your feet.