The Son of Daedalus

Feathers floated to

the dusty ground.

Stirred by the dry wind

into dizzying tornadoes

of failure.

An ever growing shadow

was cast on the ground,

expanding with each passing

second as the people took

notice of the deteriorating wings.

The people pointed and gasped

up at the sky as Icarus

tumbled and spun

toward his doom due to

his over-ambition.

Icarus flapped and fumbled,

trying to steady himself against

the buffeting winds of his fall,

scattering feathers through the

air.

The crowd stood in a horrified

stupor, watching the poor son

of Daedalus plummet helpless

to the spinning Earth and the

angry sea.

The giddy ambition of Icarus,

despite his father’s warnings,

to fly level and straight were ignored,

and Icarus tumbled from the

sky after soaring toward the sun.

Blind ambition, to do a thing

just because one can, isn’t often

reason enough to do it.

The sun can melt your wings

and you can fall to your death in the sea.  

I think that’s the lesson I learned

from the tale of Icarus as a child.

It’s tempered my ambition

and perhaps made me afraid of flying too

close to the sun.

By Jacob Peter Gowy - http://www.museodelprado.es/imagen/alta_resolucion/P01540_01.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27493281