I am not familiar with this painting by Michael Whelan — in fact, I’m pretty certain I’d never seen it before I came across it randomly a couple of weeks ago when browsing his galleries 🙂
For some reason, the art called out to me and I thought I needed to write a poem about it. I had no idea what the poem would be about, but I knew that the title had to be “Icarus”. So I put the title down in the document where I write poems, added the image in to remind me and left it.
This weekend was a bit busy because I was coding away through the weekend. But once I had gotten my code working, I really wanted to do something different — use my other creative muscles, if you will 🙂 So I came back to the poem …
I thought about it as I went to bed but didn’t have a clear idea as to how it would go. Then I woke up at 2:00am and started thinking about the poem again and then two lines came to me, and then the two became four. I knew I had to write it down since I wasn’t going to remember it as it had come to me if I waited till morning.
So I got up, put down the first stanza. And the next, and the next and so on till I thought it was done.
The start of the final stanza came to me again as I went back to bed and started nodding off. I wasn’t going to get up again though 😛 So I went to sleep, woke up and completed the final stanza.
Here it is.
Icarus
by Fahim FarookOver glen and vale he flies,
Master of the azure skies,
From craggy bluffs to roiling seas,
Across scorching deserts and verdant keys.Like Icarus of yore the skies he roams,
On silent wings, light as foam.
Gazing down on a world of wonder,
As he drifts hither or yonder.No one knows of his inception,
Was it a wonder of conception?
Is he man, or is he robot?
Was he made, or of woman begot?All they see from the ground below,
Is the coruscating glow that he throws,
As the scorching sunlight gleams brightly,
Off the shimmering suit that packs him tightly.Is he a guardian keeping all safe?
Or one who at gravity’s ropes, chafed?
Will he climb and fall as Icarus of old?
Or will he his course steadily hold?For holding one’s course is the harder thing,
As you rise, along with it does a fall bring,
But keeping on course and holding steady,
Is not for all when the winds are heady.
