Icarus Sees His Father Fly

I've spent hours watching you
Glide, soaring on updrafts
Far above the wrinkled sea

And you nearly seventy!
Up there it's all wind and lift,
Wheeling in the brilliant blue

Harnessed in that brittle frame
Of feather, wood and gum.
You swoop with a delighted screech

And climb again, so high over the beach
You seem closer to the sun
Than me. But it's just one more game

To you, aloft on your own genius
Showing how it's done.
I wonder did you ever doubt

Your own ability, trundling out
Off this cliff edge into the stun
Of that cool rush of nothingness

Beneath your feet? It's unlikely
You stopped first to think of reasons
Why you shouldn't also share the sky

With startled birds, clouds that grumble by;
All confidence, you said. I thought of gravity, some
Shift in the weather; breezes out at sea

Turning into sudden storms instead.
But you're drunk on air now, insistent
That I follow into azure by your side

Making a man of me, or you? So much I've tried
To make you proud. Shouts of encouragement
Loud in my head. Your voice once more. My arms spread.

Copyright © 2004 John O'Donnell All rights reserved
from Icarus Sees His Father Fly
Dedalus Press / Dufour Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission