Brueghel’s Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus Poem by Charl JF Cilliers

when Icarus fell
it was spring
William Carlos Williams

He watched the birds
how they sang
how their wings wove
patterns in the air
above a busy world.

He gathered feathered words
he knew could sing
and fashioned wings
for flight above all else
worth anything.

He saw the envy
in so many upturned eyes,
the whisperings
of awe as he
soared into the sun

the sun that at a distance now
is a blur of dazzling light

the farmer ploughing his fields
the ship waiting to sail out to sea

sheep grazing in the fields
sheep grazing in the fields

a ship with somewhere to go.