Icarus, 2025 Revision

And for years they will call you 
the reckless puer who flew too high
who reached the sun and plunged to death.

And no one knew that 
your destination was never the next shore;
Neither was your flight from the high maze.

They would never know that
Boötes, Helice, and Orion have 
taught you the secrets of their songs.

To reach too high is far better than 
to fall into the ways of the man
who sows the land and knows not an end.

Your story will be told as a tale for 
Boys and girls to bow to their yoke and 
You will be ridiculed, forgotten, forsaken. 

Unlike Daedalus who sang so well
that his cow and clew sent his voice
into the maze of his own grave.
​
His opera are remembered such 
that children will study his opera
                         — the man who acted. 

Yet Icarus, Icarus, ille puer qui cedidit,
Aren’t the lights in the ocean singing
the same song of the falling spheres?






​
 -- Revised from 2020.04.21 poem "Icarus."