Icarus remembers
My Father Daedalus possessed a mind
So brilliant he left scholars far behind,
In Athens what creations he designed.
He even built the mighty Labyrinth for
King Minos’s vile pet the Minotaur,
A maze where victims never found the door.
But Theseus emerged and killed the beast
Which caused old Minos grief to say the least,
He raged, forbidding us to be released.
In fury, claiming if we sailed a raft
His guards would see and intercept the craft,
He scoffed at us, how long and cruel he laughed.
The punishment made freedom obsolete,
Our company was sand beneath our feet,
Trapped on the sunny island known as Crete.
Yet Father wouldn’t let a problem halt
His famously inventive train of thought
And soon the means of our escape he’d wrought.
The plan involved collecting certain things;
Discarded feathers make realistic wings,
We bound them tightly with strong wax that clings.
And at the end of hard toil we’d begun
My Father gave advice about the sun:
‘Don’t fly too close or damage will be done.’
I listened to his counsel, I took heed
And now the time had come for our brave deed,
To fly away like birds, completely freed.
To witness Crete no further was my pledge,
We launched ourselves and high upon a ledge
What joy it was ascending from the edge.
We floated through the air for many miles,
I swooped and soared, I tried out different styles,
With Father I shared weightlessness and smiles.
But as I gazed down at each deep blue wave
I didn’t think of that warning he gave,
A god I seemed and all the world my slave.
Too near the sun whose piercing heat I felt,
Wings lose momentum if their wax should melt,
I plummeted, a fatal blow was dealt.
O Father, I marred your great victory
And yet a myth came from my tragedy;
The carefree boy who fell into the sea.
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