Who was it?
Who was it who fell?
Fell, yes, blazing with shame and beauty with wings aflame,
Fearing nothing, but knowing his end was coming all the same,
Body marked with solar toothmarks where the stars bit in,
Scorched with the dripping wax that rolled back his damaged skin,
Shedding feathers like the trail of a comet.

Who was that?
He who fell, from the heavens to the Aegean?
Daedalus's son, who with his great father leaped out
wings clinging anxiously to their arms, winds swirling about,
Catching them and tumbling them cloudwards
Seeing the Mediterranean spreading away underwards,
Salt and foam and Cretan sand, sunshine on it.

Icarus fell.
Icarus fell because he did not listen to his father's words,
So children might remember him when they see the world,
And forget their ambitions and awe, play it safe, leave on the light
Never run, never shout, never dream too high, be afraid of the night.
Because Icarus fell. And so should we all.
If we dared soar that high.