Poem: Icarus II
from Searching for Icarus: Poems for the Soul's Journey
ICARUS II
by Susan Dawn
What happened
when Icarus fell?
Did he drown beneath
the cerulean sea?
Was his naked body
cradled by its waves,
the weight of his wings,
sodden with wax and water,
keeping him from soaring higher?
Or did he drag himself
to the vacant shores
of his own humility,
crawling on his
hands and knees
in reticence and regret,
a layer of surrender
that can only be known
when you fly
and then fall.
I want to ask him about the before:
How did it feel to soar
so close to the sun—
did you recognize Helios
or did it feel like hell—
that scorching gaze
turned to you
like you were a chosen one.
Did freedom feel free,
following the flock
who have never known
what it means to be caged?
Did you tell them?
Did you whisper
how lucky they were
to have only ever known
wind beneath God-given wings?
Tell me, Icarus,
who you were before
and what became of you
after.
Searching for Icarus: Poems for the Soul’s Journey is available in eBook and paperback everywhere books are sold!
Behind the Poem
My poetry book has been twenty years in the making, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that I seriously considered publishing a book of poetry at all. These were phrases that were scribbled on a forgotten envelope in the car, lines jotted down in the middle of the night, and full verses expressed at the height of happiness or the depth of my tears—and mostly, somewhere in between.
The phrase “searching for Icarus” landed in the middle of the night, and unlike some other thoughts and “downloads” I receive at that 3am hour, this one wasn’t fleeting. It was one of those get-up-and-write-it-down moments, and so I did.
Then I left it.
But it wouldn’t leave me.
For months, poems kept getting written in my head, and I knew that there was something in me that was longing to be expressed. Writing has always been cathartic—a way in which I contemplate the world and understand myself.
Writing was once again healing me.
I just didn’t expect it to be like this…
