Icarus

We went into the woods and I was forced, by the weight of the quiet, by the weight of sunlight on water, by the weight of my own joy, to think deliberately, but my mind found only questions.



Should green be this green?


Should red be this red?


Is blue like this allowed?


Is this what they mean by black and white?


Do children and uncles have some talisman in their blood that keeps them from feeling fifty degree water?


It hurt deep inside, where life sparks and ends, where the fear lives that leaves me gasping, sweaty-palmed and tight-chested, in the fast lane of the highway, wondering how it is that I, puny and inconsequential, slow-reflexed and sluggish-minded, dare to assume that I can keep them safe, work the pedals, mind the curves.

Holding tightly to my present,


I glimpsed the future,


and cradled my past somewhere between laughter and tears.

I flew too close to the molten center of it, to the very definition of love, and I had to crawl back out, dragging singed wings.


If I view it obliquely, through mirrors and lenses, maybe I can protect myself from the fearful basilisk of change? So, I hid behind my camera, nursing the blisters on my soul.