7/31/2019 The Death of Icarus

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The warm night air choked the breath from the Layrinth and all inside,There seemed too few places outside for the father and his son to hide,And the moon brushed their backs and shed meagre light on their chore,Whilst eyes in the shadows were scornful of the hope that they bore.Daedalus had dared to help Queen Pasiphae and her daughter Ariadne,And now he and his son looked from perilous cliffs down to the sea,Gathering all the feathers and lightest wood they find in abundance,Cradling a dream for an ingenious idea inspired by a visionary trance.His father had seen in the blaze of the morning sun that very afternoon,An image surely from the Gods promising to bring about rescue soon,Two huge and stately birds soaring the sky and riding the current strong,On wings that can hold a man and carry him away on his journey long.

It was slow work by the tiny fire where wax was melted and then set hard,With feathers and strong canes woven together whilst Icarus stood guard,Ever they felt the gaze of the curious who looked for a way to freedom,But they left them well alone thinking in him the light of madness shone.The smoke stung his grey eyes and the white of his beard now full grown,His fingers were nimble as they weaved their magic from moss and bone,And the wings started to take shape and were as soft as the hide he used,Over which feathers were layered and all was tightly bound and fused.Never had Daedalus struggled as much to fashion a thing so beautiful,His muscles ached from the work and his fevered mind went slowly dull,Icarus his young son with impatience was always imploring him to hurry,

Quickly Father he would say, I hear them coming and now I worry.

Four days it took of solid craft to make the harness they bound to each,Only one hour of practise they had as the elder man did guide and teach,The wings were twice as long as their spans yet light enough to hold,And with a twist this way and that would glide above the waters cold.The eddies and currents of the winds were to be what took them high,But Daedalus warned of the effects of the merciless sun in the sky,Soar too near the heat and fear the wax would melt and all fall apart,Drift too low and the spray of the waves would ruin the feathers art.They had no time for tests and Icarus in fearless leap and eager escape,Ran for the clifftop and spread out his arms and took a diving shape,Which saw him plummet down in graceful swoop a hundred feet plus,

Until he caught an upward draft of air and was carried by the gust.

His cries of joy and wails of delight are carried with birds alarm calls,Rising and falling from left to right his strong body races past the walls,No jagged rock will claim him as he taunts death with all his speed,And his father takes one cautious step then finds he too is freed.Exhileration fast and furious on feathered sails that caress the breeze,Icarus is intoxicated and feels adrenalin flooding him as if to please,His muscles strain and his lithe body adapts to the push and the pull,He can outpace the dolphins below him and outfly the soaring gull.Long tresses break free from the cord at his neck and fall about him,His eyes smart and the words of warning have now grown dim,As he fails to work the hot air currents that buoy him up higher,

He skims close to huge waves ever trying to be a consummate flyer.

Pull up you fool, shouts his father from high above, lest you drownThe would be King of the skies laughs and jokes and plays the clown,But heeds the faint words and climbs to a greater altitude and safety,Yet soon is gone again where Daedalus can no longer hear or see.And the old man smiles at youthful folly and wonders at the boy,Then swoops and dives caught up himself in the rapture and the joy,But his old bones ache with all the hardship he put his body through,So he soon levels out and coasts the sky as far below the sailboats do.

7/31/2019 The Death of Icarus

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An albatross crosses his path and he spares a little troubled look,He can see the mainland of Samos far away and his confidence shook,For by now his son too must have glimpsed the end finally in sight,Yet they would need to stay close for landing was dangerous in flight.

Icarus his head so full of images from cloudy mist to twinkling sea,Was caught up in the thrill still and never thinking as he should be,Determined to test his strength and endurance flying towards the sun,He climbed ever higher driven by his zeal as fast as bullet from a gun.But woe the shot that pricked his memory too late to pay it heed,He lost his power as the wax melted and could not gain more speed,Having to work twice as hard his feathers loosed and fell one by one,While all Icarus could do was dive but alas the deadly deed was done.True he plummeted as graceful as a lark trying to hold himself aloft,But he could not level out and the turbulence was no longer soft.Blood dripped from his nose and stained the white down of his wings,He thinks he heard the voice of the siren of which the sailor sings,And the rage of the seas roars in his ears and he screams in terror,Father come save me, is lost on the wind masking his lethal error.

Like some old prehistoric bird the last of its kind searching for others,Daedalus combs the seas and rocks until exhaustion soon smothers,And he has to concede to his bodys demands and fly to safety now,Despite the fear of doubt that gnaws at his bones he hopes somehow.

Maybe his son made it to land before him ever the acrobat and strong,Perhaps the fatalistic feeling taht comes upon loved ones is wrong,With tears in his eyes as the dawn grips him and anchors him to land,There is no call of julilant congratulations and no outstretched hand.And as the turtles push their way up the sands of a small islet nearby,The stars themselves are all who see that here Icarus is layed to die,Pale and bruised his battered wings wrapped about his broken form,Crushed and deposited by currents and waves driven by a storm.

Sea kelp washes in and out of his legs on the tides ebb and flow,His matted hair still looks wilfully alive and has a certain glow,But the pallor of his face is much like a ghost who haunts a spot,And the mermaids and other sea creatures leave him alone to rot.

Now the Icarian Sea whispers of the ancient tale as if to warn,Ever his name is carried on the water where the legend was born,Near Icaria his island where he waited to be found though dead,Legend turning his folly into bravery for his honour they said.But in those tears that stung his eyes as he fell to his death,And the tears of his father when he finally took his last breath,They say it is why we weep salt water in remembrance,And it flows trying to find its way home by some chance.