05.07.19 when the bough breaks

on whom do we blame the fall?
rock a bye baby don’t you cry
“the unnatural offspring of a woman and a beast”
the projection of shame for the violence
of mother-stripped instincts
locked in a labyrinth
for sacrificial pride
and the curse so oft rehearsed
at the bedside
rock a bye baby don’t you cry
it’s all gonna fall now
the gods forgot how
the stories go
from cradle to casket
and come
til all that’s left is human
only blood and sweat and dust left
to illumin—
ate one bite, that’s all
just one for the fall
of the father and his limited sight
made wings suited only for his own plight
his own wisdom and scope:
“don’t soar too high nor too low
or these narrow-band wings
won’t last as far as we need go.”
He knows his own limits
fears the sky and the sea
though his creation by nature
must exceed them:
his legacy is discovery.
so Icarus’ problem was not
hubris or heedless folly
but in soaring on the wings of his father’s
invention
and the subsequent prevention
of nurturing the vision
of inborn sight
that soars on the power of—
the making of—
his own flight.