Analysis of Icarus Reborn (10/15/89)
It lay on the ground trembling violently
As if possessed, then suddenly
Leaped toward the sky, catlike,
Its tail a mad scythe slicing the air,
Soaring for a moment in pursuit of the gulls
Then swooped back to earth once more.
He ran into the wind, kite trailing behind,
The two of them joined by a slender string,
Heels dug in, it flapped in the dirt,
Unwilling to loosen its hold on the earth
When a strong gust seized it
And cast it adrift up among the birds.
Higher and higher in the sky it sailed
As he let the line run free
I watched the kite growing smaller, smaller,
Vanishing slowly from sight
And listened as the wind sang
Softly, silently, across the taut string.
My son held that life at the end of the line
As it pulled and pulled on the reins,
And we both gazed up, our hearts in our throats
While it flew back and forth through the air.
As you wrestled with that wild, winged thing,
There occurred a shift in time and place;
Daedalus was I, inventor great
And you my bold son Icarus.
We soared on wings of wax and feather
Out of the Minotaur's stony maze
And after I had flown to freedom,
(Ignoring all of my beseechments),
You spiraled upward toward the sun.
Slowly, steadily the kite came back to Earth,
The string went slack, the music ceased,
The struggle stopped, it fluttered
In the dirt, a dying beast,
And I knew one day
I must set you free
To roam the sky
Or plunge
Into the
Sea.
And I knew
That when the day arrived
I would long
For the sweet, stinging strife
Of the string burning my hands
And the wind's silent song.
Scheme | AAXBCX XDXEXX XAFXXD XXXB DXXXFXXCX EGXGXAXXXA XXHXXH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111011001000 11011100 101011 110111001 101010001101 1111111 11010111001 0111110101 11011001 01011011101 101111 0110110101 1001000111 1110111 1101101010 1001011 0101011 1010001011 11111101101 11101101 011111010101 111101101 111011111 101010101 100110101 0111110 111111010 1101101 010111110 0101111 110100101 10100011111 01110101 0101110 0010101 01111 11111 1101 11 010 1 011 110101 111 101101 1011011 001101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,498 |
Words | 295 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 4, 9, 10, 6 |
Lines Amount | 47 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 172 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 42 |
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"Icarus Reborn (10/15/89)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/98719/icarus-reborn-%2810--15--89%29>.
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