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.