Meditation on Lord of the Flies

I am Ralph

Always watching my feet on the rocks

Thinking and planning

Yearning for home and the moors’ ponies

Trying to hold things together

With nothing but rules and consensus

That there is a way to live together in peace

Though the work of it makes me weep.

I am Piggy

My brain burgeons with solutions

Craving and cowering

Despairing as they mock me, my ideas

With my glasses not myself valued

That I wish an adult could help us

For alone the beast will win.

I am Simon

The candle-buds’ beauty kindles a fire in my brain.

Dreaming and sharing

Seeking the butterflies and the shaded glen.

Yearning to bring others to the light

With nothing but a smile and silence

That there is no way to survive the beast

And the sea’s soft embrace surrounds my body.

I am Jack,

The storms of power surge through me.

Hunting and bullying

Grasping for meat and might

With so much fury and fear

That there is a way to control the tribes

With the heart of it skewered in madness.

We are boys

We are English, raised one way

Stiff upper lip and the good of the many

Struggling between man and beast

With only a shared history and hope

That we may support one another

Or die one by one,

Stripped of humanity.