ENGL 146 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Tundra Swan
8 Sep 2015
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We do not find him doing penance, writing out the golden mean for all eternity, or touring its high schools to tell student bodies not to do what he done done. Over and over he rehearses flight and fall, tuning his moves, entering with fresh rush into the mingling of the air with spirit. This is his practice and his prayer: to be translated into air, as air with each breath enters lungs, then blood. He may glide in the long arc of a tundra swan or pull up sharp to. Kingfisher into the sea which bears his name. On the shore the farmer ploughs his field, the dull ship sails away, the poets moralise about our insignificance. But icarus is thinking tremolo and backflip, is thinking next time with a half-twist and a tuck and isn"t sorry. Publication information: icarus was originally published in don mckay"s collection of poems titled another gravity in 2000.
