Icharus Falling
I wish it were easier to fall asleep. The winged bugs have invaded the house. They travel along even white deserts into clocks and under paintings. Some get caught in the lampshades, where they beat against the bulb for a fitfull while, making as much noise and motion as they can, and then they burn up, I guess.
They remind me of Icharus. I had once heard a very lovely poem concerning him. And, after a little searching, I had just found it again, and on the way I found another, responding to it. I decided to include both here, and I apologize, to those who may actually read this, for the amount of space and time I might take. But here they are:
-----------------------------------------------------
Musée des Beaux Arts
W. H. Auden
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
-----------------------------------------------------
A Picture By Brueghel:
Landscape With Icarus Falling
(contra Auden)
by Shane Rhodes
Brueghel was right-
everyone sees
nothing at least
once in the life
of a tragedy.
To the left,
in the painting,
a tenant farmer
walks behind a horse-
four centuries
of ploughing
and not once
has he dropped
his seed.
The light here
will be taken
without footnote
by Monet.
Yet the fallen
boy beating
the sea with
broken wings
is less
amazing
than the ship
sailing by
with its paint-thick hold
full of slaves
from Mozambique.
Or the shepherd
staring away so
intent at nothing
his eyes
gouge out.
Such private things
done
with public weight.
He was wrong,
the old master,
about suffering.
It does not ascend
beyond its human
position-
like Icarus to myth-
but profits
beneath paint
(a scream through water)
in parenthesis
Well, I'll let you peruse that.
...I should go lie down.
They remind me of Icharus. I had once heard a very lovely poem concerning him. And, after a little searching, I had just found it again, and on the way I found another, responding to it. I decided to include both here, and I apologize, to those who may actually read this, for the amount of space and time I might take. But here they are:
-----------------------------------------------------
Musée des Beaux Arts
W. H. Auden
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
-----------------------------------------------------
A Picture By Brueghel:
Landscape With Icarus Falling
(contra Auden)
by Shane Rhodes
Brueghel was right-
everyone sees
nothing at least
once in the life
of a tragedy.
To the left,
in the painting,
a tenant farmer
walks behind a horse-
four centuries
of ploughing
and not once
has he dropped
his seed.
The light here
will be taken
without footnote
by Monet.
Yet the fallen
boy beating
the sea with
broken wings
is less
amazing
than the ship
sailing by
with its paint-thick hold
full of slaves
from Mozambique.
Or the shepherd
staring away so
intent at nothing
his eyes
gouge out.
Such private things
done
with public weight.
He was wrong,
the old master,
about suffering.
It does not ascend
beyond its human
position-
like Icarus to myth-
but profits
beneath paint
(a scream through water)
in parenthesis
Well, I'll let you peruse that.
...I should go lie down.