I flew from the coast of Maine back to Virginia yesterday—a long day thanks to the delay in LaGuardia “due to inclement weather.” Outside the sky was neon blue. “It’s so hot, the planes can’t fly,” a Delta representative explained. I pictured the plane melting. I thought of Icarus, his wings dripping beeswax. Then I thought of all the great Daedalus and Icarus poems, poems by Edward Field, W.H. Auden, William Carlos Williams, Jack Gilbert, Anne Sexton, Stephen Spender, Robert Hayden, Joseph Brodsky, Stephen Dobyns, Muriel Rukeyser . . .
Reading the myth, I’ve often wondered about the character of Daedalus, a shady guy who murdered his first apprentice, Talos, when he realized Talos was more talented than he was. What did he really think of Icarus, his son by a slave woman? I know—Ovid suggests Daedalus loved Icarus, that he kissed him and wept and warned him to travel the middle path, that he grieved his loss. But how many adolescent boys travel the middle path? Daedalus was like a father giving a son, who has never driven, a Ferrari race car, telling him, “Don’t speed.”
Later, when my plane finally took off (though the day had only gotten hotter), I wondered, what happens to over-heated planes? Do they catch fire? Seated by the emergency exit, I imagined opening the metal door, tossing it to the wind, passengers leaping into the air, filling the sky like wingless Icaruses.
I love all the poems I’ve mentioned about this myth. This morning I discovered this brilliant poem by Saeed Jones.
Daedalus, After Icarus
Boys begin to gather around the man like seagulls.
He ignores them entirely, but they follow him
from one end of the beach to the other.
Their footprints burn holes in the sand.
It’s quite a sight, a strange parade:
a man with a pair of wings strapped to his arms
followed by a flock of rowdy boys.
Some squawk and flap their bony limbs.
Others try to leap now and then, stumbling
as the sand tugs at their feet. One boy pretends to fly
in a circle around the man, cawing in his face.
We don’t know his name or why he walks
along our beach, talking to the wind.
To say nothing of those wings. A woman yells
to her son, Ask him if he’ll make me a pair.
Maybe I’ll finally leave your father.
He answers our cackles with a sudden stop,
turns, and runs toward the water.
The children jump into the waves after him.
Over the sound of their thrashes and giggles,
we hear a boy say, We don’t want wings.
We want to be fish now.
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Author: Nin Andrews
