He, Icarus

We know him his wax and glued wings.

They were merely a feathered instrument
for a soul who rose a boy
and fell a man.

A boy whose minds eye didn’t see
trees, buildings, people,
but horizons.

The curvature of the earth was his.

That wide, graceful, slinky thing
that slipped into every corner of his dreams.
His eyes leaking tears
while soaring in the harsh wind.

The plummet and potential death held no 
sway over him. His fear - the thing
that countered his entire being -

was to be bound. Constrained.

His shackle was gravity.

To fight it, to resist. To gather his strength
and dominate the flat spaces, to face the sun,
to approach the height. These were to him

as breathing is to a drunkard.

An unconscious necessity. A mark of an internal engine
pumping the gallows while the brain sleeps.

It purveyed his every vein.

If we hold ourselves still. Breathe. 
Find the breath. We may 
be able

to imagine, 
for one heroic moment,

he, Icarus, with wax, sweat and feathers

trailing his upward motion, roaring into the sun
roaring at the horizon

and ultimately,

laughing as he fell.

For what is life
if we dare not.