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
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Compare this poem to that of W H Auden’s poem on the same subject. Two poems which use the painting for strikingly different purposes.
At six feet above m.s.l
The scope of my sight across seascape
Ceases at six miles
Where sea meets sky at the earthends.
But an inteminable impression
Of space and distance draws me
From pasture and plogh and fishing
To the destinies of my doom.
R.Lakshman.
It is true that we who push the boundaries to be noticed, only can hope that the footprints are not in sand, rather, in concrete, so that all may remember us.