Found Poem -- "Half a Mile Above the World"

The other day my friend Amy sent me a link to a TED talk about a creative process called Blackout.  It is much like what is commonly referred to as a "found" poem, something I have done on my own and have taught my students to do as well.  It simply means taking a piece of text, circling or highlighting words that stand out in some way, and then recreating those words as a poem.  This is a time-honored tradition as explained by Austin Kleon in the video:

History of "Found" poetry -- 11 minutes

So today I was reading Khaled Housseini's new book And the Mountains Echoed, and I came to a couple of pages I simply could not just pass through as a reader.  They demanded that I create a blackout poem...so that is what I've done today.  Here is what the process looks like:

Half a Mile Above the World

His voice dragged now
something weighed on each word
long silences, his face closed off.

Gone.
Vanished.
Nothing left.
Nothing said.

He knelt on the ground
the decaying stone tower
her gap-toothed smile
the tinkle of her laughter rolling around the house.

Panicking.
Shrieking.
His finger struck metal
Her absence like a smell pushing up from the earth.

There is no forgetting.

She was like the dust that clung to his shirt.
She was in the silences.
A cloud filled with rain that never fell...
A single tiny glint of light flickering on, off, on, off...

One day.
He would wait.
Rise one morning.
Choose a direction.
Begin to walk.

He would think of the falcon feather,
the feather coming loose from the bird,
up in the clouds,
half a mile above the world,
twirling and spinning,
to finally land
at the foot of that one boulder.

It would strike him with wonder.

He would take heart.
Open his eyes.
And walk.