NOT YET A MAN
There are notes of melancholy in the air.
A boy folded his wings and fell through
a seam in the clouds - broken comet blazing
through blue, he dragged the ceiling of heaven
down. His cry cracked the sullen sea.
Did you hear his splash?
The dusk barely shook itself -
there was no moment's silence.
The smallest of waves rose to soak
the local shore, tickling the laughing feet
of children too busy with sand
and ice creams to notice. I counted
nine pink tongues licking.
He raked the sky clean.
Someone's son
and
a
split
second
plummeting.
CB
FLOAT - CB - Acrylic on Paper 1995
This week's editor on the Tuesday Poem hub is Kathleen Jones.
Kathleen has chosen a remarkable poem by Canadian eco-poet Catherine Owen -
"Our minds can turn anything romantic.
Is the problem.
The sewagy mud of the Fraser a quaint muslin & the spumes
pulsing out of chimneys at the Lafarge cement plant look,
at night, like two of Isadora Duncan’s scarves, pale, insouciant veils,
harmless. The trees are all gone but then aren’t our hearts
more similar to wastelands. . ."
Yes!
For more Tuesday Poems, please click on the quill.
Both fresh and haunting, Claire. Strangely the whole seems to ascend although it describes descent.
ReplyDeleteLovely rendering of the Icarus story, Claire. Beautifully done.
ReplyDelete'fell through/a seam in the clouds/broken comet blazing/through blue, he dragged the ceiling of heaven/down. His cry cracked the sullen sea."
'the dusk barely shook itself.' "He raked the sky clean//Somebody's son' Sigh.
Has anyone done this since Auden's? And love the painting. xo Melissa
So haunting and heartbreaking. I see this not as the story of Icarus but of events far more immediate and tragic in our world, boys broken and lost, and no one listening. The images are searing in their subtlety, their wondrous grace. And then that luminous painting, "Float," offering hope. Just beautiful, dear Claire.
ReplyDelete