Icarus

in memory of a friend lost in a hiking accident

Photo by Liana S on Unsplash

Icarus
            After Bryony Littlefair

When you feel better from this someday— and you will— you’ll stop blaming the sun. A wide morning ray will slant through the window, turning rain spots to sequins, and you’ll name the colors. The million greens of the tree line will seem sharper against the white sky. You’ll feel the comfort of the cat against your back and the weight of the blanket in blessed sleep, the scald and steam of shower as it wakes you to skin. You’ll lay out a proper breakfast, open the bright bergamot jam, spread it with a shiny spoon. And you’ll taste again. You’ll taste sun. In the play of light, you’ll see two guitars on the wall—one wooden, the other its shadow—each beautiful. Though there is still no music, there is the memory of a strum. Not that any of this will rewind the fall or heal the distance, but maybe the dust motes suspended in light will dance slowly enough for you to forget, even for a moment, that he had no wings.

This poem was written in memory of a friend lost in a tragic hiking accident on April 26 and published in ONE ART: a journal of poetry on Thursday, May 21, the day of his celebration of life. Many thanks to editor Mark Danowsky for making that happen. The first line is inspired by the poem “Giraffe” by Bryony Littlefair.

It’s hard to make sense of any loss, but the ones that are sudden and tragic—too soon, too fast, too young—are particularly hard to process. You can turn the images around in your head again and again, the moment, the second where things might have gone differently, and never change the outcome, never understand the why or the how of the instant between there and not there, of a life ended too soon. And then, in the most painful of aftermoments, there is a wave of unexpected love that sweeps you up in it’s arms and carries you. There are the offerings, the gestures, the notes, calls, testimonies. And the witnesses. The witnesses that show up to say, I knew him in this way. And the message that finally comes through in small moments of micro-ease, is that we are meant to live in awe of the world around us and the people we love with the time we are given. I wish this for his wife, his children, and all who loved him.

“We’re all just walking each other home.” ~Ram Dass

With Gratitude,