HEROIC IMAGES I: SO YOU THINK YOU CAN FLY, MR ICARUS?

How far we have gone

into the collective myth

where Icarus,

flying into the Sun,

burns his wings

at the hearth of Creation.

Icarus, gone mad,

inside his flying machine,

Technology promising to keep us going

so long as we believe

in its magic.

In an enormous lift of bootstring faith

we swoop and fly

over a horizon fit for heroes,

over a deep-blue sea full of

long-forgotten beginnings.

But now, in this created future lies

a more awesome mystery.

Already we stand in awe before

the fireball

in our feared vision, consumer of creation.

I sit in the kitchen, nowhere to go,

listening to Pink Floyd.

Outside, the summer rain turns the garden

into a jungle beyond control.

A sparrow peeks in at the window,

beak all quizzical

at the man locked inside four walls:

"So you think you can fly, Mr Icarus?"

RW, first draft, 15.VII.82, second draft, 15.XII.92.

Copyright, Rory Winter 2013