At last he sleeps, in fits and half-dreamed fears,
that love, and work, and life are passing vapor,
and all the wings he made, he’s made of paper.
In “About Suffering,” Dave Lucas does an amazing job of using Icarus and his father to represent the tribulations of mankind in everyday life. We are bold and we are bright, as Icarus was. We are relentless workers afraid that life is passing us by, that we will never catch up, as is Daedalus. What will come of us and our contributions? Suffering is of and apart of everyone. Lucas coveys this through his solemn tone,” Of course the world must break and scatter him along.” The soberness of this tone helps relate the reality of the world to the reader and solidifies the notion that suffering is for everyone, for the common man. The dichotomy of Icarus and Daedalus represent the phases one can go through in life. Icarus is ” young and proud. He likes the sound of his own voice.”; he is who we are before anguish settles itself into the nooks and crannies of our soul. He is a novice and the world will best him. We are all bested at some point. Daedalus is “bent to an unforgiving craft in someone else’s labyrinth.” In our lives, we live routinely–we live comfortably. We become bested and still we work, we go to school, we live. Pain comes gradually and all at once, we continue. We are both Icarus and Daedalus; hopeful and cautious. Optimists and pessimists, we live each day trying to remain upright. Hoping that what we do and experience means something.
Here’s the whole poem:
About Suffering
It’s never Icarus. It’s not that grand
gesture of feather, wax and atmosphere
in flux, it’s less than that, it’s lesser than—.
It doesn’t happen in pentameter:
suffering, failure, agonies in gardens,
but in the sideways-speak of bureaucrats
whose words, like these, disguise what they intend.
Under soft, fluorescent suns of waiting rooms,
physicians’ consultations, where the lungs
on the light box are spread out like wings,
all this illumination just to show
the dark spots slowly blotting out our names.
Sadder than tragedy, and silly, these cuts
that bleed you dry. I mean you. You know
as well as I—Icarus is not for us.
He flies and falls, that’s all. He doesn’t joke
to hide his fear, or seem ashamed, or wound
lovers with rusted, jagged-edged words.
He never sulks in tristesse after sex.
He’s young and proud. He likes the sound
of his own voice. Of course the world must break
and scatter him among the falling birds.
It’s never him. His father, Daedalus—
he’s our muse, bent to an unforgiving craft
in someone else’s labyrinth, the dark
exile in which he sets himself to work:
letting the candles gutter so the wax
spills, seals vane and down at quill and shaft,
working longer into the thankless night.
He has worked feathers into these wings for years.
He has slim hope, at best, that they will hold.
Come daybreak they will stand outside the gate
and test the wind. For once he will be bold.
At last he sleeps, in fits and half-dreamed fears
that love, and work, and life are passing vapor,
and all the wings he’s made he’s made of paper.