Icarus Did Fly

Everyone forgets that Icarus did fly,

that he rose off the ground and rode updrafts,

that he helped design and build

a set of wind-worthy wings,

that he caught birds and killed birds

and plucked birds and cooked birds.

Food for inspiration.

We fail to imagine him

sitting there in Crete, leaning against 

one of the Labyrinth’s infinite walls

and strapping a pair of fully functional

four meter wings to his arms.

Now, imagine him standing up--

for the last time in his life--

and starting to flap, lifting up in his invention

at first on bobbing hops of weightlessness

and then beating against the gusts and blasts

of the Mediterranean breathing over the genius’ walls.

My children slowly push the edges of two futons

against each other. They buckle, lift and flop.

There is much laughter and sound effects in this game.

Here I have a good model of plate tectonics.

Up up up he flew, moving amidst the churning air

above his island birthplace and prison.

He followed his father’s path in flight,

but then looked back and fathomed

the revealed plan of the Labyrinth

beneath him, seeing the whole 

maze from a higher perspective

and finally not feeling lost.

Feeling bird-viewed.

Feeling awe-struck.

Feeling free.

Strapped within the success of his thoughts,

he flew beyond the reach of mountains

and waves and Minos’ guards.

Given such victories against such gravities,

can we blame him for a blaze of pride,

for thinking that just maybe 

he was good enough to sit with gods?

Uranium fuel rods gently chime

within their honeycomb hives:

a rattling song,

evidence of torque and earth-crust undulations. 

Should the pools of coolant stop flowing,

uranium pellets would begin to glow

beyond white, burning with mathematical purity

through meter after meter of concrete, deeper

into gravity’s embrace.

Icarus put his ideas to test,

using his own life as the risk.

This has a type of superhuman

test-pilot nobility in it.

Tokyo Electric Power Company

built their reactors in Fukushima.

Everyone still wisely rejects

putting reactors near the capital.

It is rumored that Icarus gathered 

over a million feathers during his lifetime.

All of them, cataloged and sorted

into structure, size and source.

His father taught him

the skills of attention and invention,

the ways of building impossible things.

A woman in a pink coat

and pink pants

and a pink scarf

and pink gloves

and a pink helmet

on a pink scooter

just zipped past 

the Education Center’s 

parking lot gate.

Somewhere someday

she will die, probably

long after her motorbike

and outfit have vanished.

The terminal velocity

of a falling flailing body

is about 200 kilometers per hour.

When Icarus’ head hit the water,

he was moving very fast. Faster than

the feathers and ash and drops of wax

that followed. The impact

knocked him out

or killed him instantly. 

The ocean filled him calmly.

His ripple didn’t reach any shore,

but it lasted longer than the sound

of his splash or final word.

The tsunami reached and reached

and reached and reached, raising

its greasy black stench higher than everyone

imagined, going beyond the impossible.

Those who climbed higher than what was

impossible, found an old stone on the hillside

engraved in ancestor script, saying,

“Don’t build lower than this point.”

Tell me when we have listened to our parents.

by jerry gordon

4.30.2012