And eating cherries in the morning, I think about Icarus Young, Golden, Brilliant Boy So overcome by the freedom So overcome by the ecstasy of it all That he forgot to heed his father’s warnings That he felt the sea-spray That he felt the sun’s sharp rays on his back And he smiled And he flew And he called back to his father Zooming ahead This way and that ``We’re going home! `` Home Home Home And the cherry juice running down my hand reminds me of the wax Melting, bubbling, burning Turning his pale skin red Dripping and falling Into the blue sea below Wax, from the candles That had been the only source of light In the dark windowless tower Wax, that held together each feather Each feather that gifted him the ability to fly To soar To reach out and touch Apollo’s sun And, spitting out the pit of the cherry, I think about The pit in Icarus's stomach As he realizes it was too late As the far away blue grows closer and closer As he can see the ripples As he can see the end of his freedom So limited, so short But my sweet Icarus Never felt fear Never felt free In the labyrinth, He was trapped by his father’s ambition In the tower, Trapped by King Minos Trapped by all of Crete I have heard people say that Icarus laughed As he was plummeting through the sky, he laughed And who am I to say he didn’t Who am I to say that sun-drunk Icarus Reckless and at last uncontained Didn’t spend his last moments The sea’s arms reaching up for him Howling Screaming joy and triumph ``I flew! I flew!`` And he knew that Despite the fact that he flew He was falling And as I reach for the last cherry in the bowl Icarus reaches up his arms in a last moment Before the sea receives him Before he is pulled under the waves His father, watching Screaming Crying But in that moment, Icarus was not his father’s son In the moment of the flight, he was Apollo’s In the sea, Poseidon's Soon, he would be Hades’s So, like the cherry stem I roll and twist between my fingers Icarus rolled and twisted in the waves The last dying breath taken from his lungs His body now sinking Sea-claimed, Sky-hungry boy Now void of his free falling flight Maybe, he could have lived Grown old in the tower Or maybe he could have fought That all-consuming urge That freedom Maybe he wouldn’t have reached out and touched Apollo But he would Oh, but he would All over again, given the choice He would have chosen that last dying flight The fall And so Icarus God-touched Light-chasing Sun-drunk Icarus Flew Flew Flew And fell And It was a tragedy And it was anything but And I smile thinking of my freedom-mad boy And I forget about the cherries And their juice staining my hands
