William Carlos Williams: “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings’ wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

William Carlos Williams
(part II of Pictures from Brueghel)

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Image:   De Val van Icarus by Pieter Brueghel  de Oude (oil, 1558)