deepundergroundpoetry.com

Icarus With a Cane

I have walked too near
The sun
Walking old-man gait
With my golden cane
Tapping out
The remains of my life.
 
Do I near the end?
Undoubtedly. Yet
There is shade ahead,
Two patches before
I tire and turn around.
 
The first has the mulberry tree
Which bears no fruit this year.
The corn is tasseling
While beneath my feet,
In roots and grass,
A thousand dramas
Of life and death
Play out to denouement
And insectoid conclusion.
 
Another thirty yards
Until I stop, rest,
And peer into the lushness
Of vegetation sprouting,
Blooming, greening
In a multitude of greens.
There, hidden by vines
And ivy that poisons,
Is the old foundation.
This is where the ancient
Crone woman lived.
Black, alone, facing
Each day surrounded
By spirits with names unknown.
And how the vegetation has grown.
 
You call it the “Cannibal Patch”
Because when you were a child
That is how your parents called it.
And frightened you away
Because the cannibal
That lived within
Ate little children
To expiate her sin.
 
That’s racist, I say,
And move on into
The blinding brightness  
Of the day.
 
Had Icarus survived his
Faulty wings,
Might he not, in his
Old age,
Hobbled along like some
Ancient sage.
With a cane just like mine
To think of flights of madness
From another time.
 
 
Written by Mrd
Published | Edited 8th Jul 2022
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