Another Take, with Prologue, on Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, by Bernadette McBride

Landscape with Fall of Icarus, attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Netherlands), 1555, now thought to be a copy of the master's composition by an unknown artist.

Another Take, with Prologue, on Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

As youth will, knowing nothing but to soar
on a spring day’s rush of baby-green sprout

and lemon haze, too much aching to resist,
he ignores warning; hoots and yowls as he climbs 

the thermals, pushes up and up, vein-bulged arms 
and legs pumping, swimming the clouds,

gasping his ecstasy, watching farm and hill 
give way to the coast. Drums out over the sea’s 

cerulean heave, thrusts higher, higher, as it recedes, 
appears a puddle, prone to dry to saline flakes 

before day’s end. Now the sun grows attainable, 
a wild tale for his grandchildren, and he pumps higher,

pores weeping in the effort (easily cooled once 
he’s made history). Higher still, heat, sweat, 

hot drops on shoulders, more hot drops and wings 
have grown smaller; the sun suddenly farther.

When survival keeps grown-up heads down 
in planting’s and herding’s urgency, dinner’s catch, 

and shipping’s commerce, why worry strung feathers, 
bits of congealed wax, two legs kicking sudden 

on sea’s surface. Splash. A young fool’s foiled.

Bernadette McBride

Bernadette McBride, author of three poetry collections, most recently, Whatever Measure of Light (Kelsay Books, 2016), is poetry editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal. She is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a Pennsylvania county Poet Laureate, and poetry winner, second place, for the International Ray Bradbury Writing Award. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review, Cider Press Review, Philadelphia Stories, and Ragged Sky Press as well as journals in the UK, Canada, and on PRI's The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor. She welcomes your visit atbernadettemcbrideblog.wordpress.com.