when reading of icarus i
cannot help but fear the crushing weight of king minos combined with the over-zealous
wit of daedalus.

for icarus was perhaps too prideful;
met with a moment of weakness;
adrenaline coursing through his veins;
and a sheer loss of control
blinded by the highest point of the sun
in a blooming sky.

perhaps even he failed
to head his father’s warning
as the burning wax of his wings
melted upon his shoulders.

yet king minos sentenced daedalus
and too his son,
who later fell to the fate of his father’s own design.
not once
but twice.
not once,
but twice -
but twice,
but twice a child
returned with confidence
to his father.

and the ringing in my head still continues to be  that the child is not to blame for
the sins of the father.
the child does not carry
the sins of the father.

so it goes that in the end
daedalus was granted athena’s wings ever-soaring.
perhaps in grief;
perhaps in empathy;
perhaps by the grace of a woman’s forgiving touch.

but icarus still drowned in the spring.
and the ploughing of the fields
remained uninterrupted as his scorched  
waxen body fell into
the jowls of the sea.