WEBVTT

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A student mentioned this
poem in Claire McLane's class

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this morning, so I
thought I would read it.

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It's nice to think about
it, so thank you for that.

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"Yesterday's myth.

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When Icarus fell
out of the sky, I

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was driving my
sons to the river.

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Mama, what's that?

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Bird, I said, because
I couldn't say tragedy.

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Too young to understand the
terror of trusting a parent,

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my sons noted wings
like feet kicking

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at the earth from the clouds.

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We were nearing the
Anacostia, racing

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along a ribbon of highway,
creature, falling child.

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Is ingenuity the
mistake, or are you?

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I think of my father and
the experiment of his life.

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He had a faith in
fate that bloomed

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with age, his godlike
folly, and sang

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the ceaseless blaze of the sun.

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Even now I swell with love for
him and with terrible shame.

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It is too easy to not see.

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Icarus hit the
water, fathoms deep,

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culled into the river's
unrelenting rhythms,

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dead at best, while every father
somehow keeps flying, even mine.

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It is too easy to hide in elegy,
pretending I know what to mourn,

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as if art were no accident, as
if my sons weren't screaming

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for snacks in the back seat,
each a radius of chaos that love

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renames exquisite and nature.

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The bird forgotten, the father
and his reluctant acolyte,

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both worn out by glory,
are once and for all apart.

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Who am I protecting?

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When I fell from the
sky, I was finally free."

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