UNDER THE SUN

When Auden wrote about Icarus  
He looked at Brueghel’s painting in a framed museum haze.
He did not expose his pupils to the direct glow of light,
and did not open his nostrils to the odor of sage,
and did not undress his body to the touch of a ray that drugs every feeling
that which melts and drips like wax.

And now for the young boy who falls from the sky.

I was there, in Crete, and saw it myself
and like the peasant I continued to plow
and like the very elegant boat I embarked further on my way
and like the olive I stood
and like the small river I flowed
and like the rock I hardened my heart and didn’t pay
attention to his suffering
and I also said, “a person can’t find – which means understand –
what is done under the sun.”

                                                               Crete, Fall 1988

UNDER THE SUN