Daedalus and Icarus
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
“The natural rhythms of Greek [poetry] tend ‘downward,’ falling”
~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 14
How strange it is to think that ancient Greek
In poetry inclined to downward flow.
We think that the trajectory was sleek
In upward movement in those minds aglow
With new fought logic and in beauty’s realm.
The men rose high and higher in their thought
And through carved loveliness of lines. The helm
They stood at was upon a ship that caught
The sunlit wind to plunge them forward. Sing
And write was what they did. They penned new ways
To think and mean. They built the mind a wing
Of newness for the stage, and book, and praise.
..That wing was meant for upwardness and flight
….And sunrise, not for falling towards the night.
“The pitch of the language was seen to relate it closely to music.”
~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 14
A major key floats upwards in the soul.
The pitch of poetry is perfect for
The spirit like the beckoning North Pole
Entreats the compass. Yearning yet for more
We feel the fetching of the words inside
Our ribs, their cage, the way a bird chest swells
Behind the bars. The sounds pull in the tides
And flood us—or more like priming of wells.
But minor chords and melodies in spoken lines
Impel us outward, too. The sad and faint
Incise the bones and open us like mines.
How else could anyone become a saint?
..The major and the minor pitches grope
….Our hearts, propelling both despair and hope.