Daedalus At Dusk

Now is the Summer nearly gone and brief youth long passed,

The rain’s green streams no more paint our fields,

But wash each hill by long downpours,

But still I watch the young ones make ambitious crossing,

Drawing lines and longitudes,

And suddenly I think how I once made the journey,

Before I tell the tale

I hear the wind in endless speeches to woebegone seafarers,

Timeless accounts of all the miles and dreamers it has buoyed,

I dreamed I sailed and left the prison Earth,

But let the sea write down an unfair doom,

Must I still read of this sad pilgrimage?

Or listen as the Sun repents of mocking the unladdered sky,

Let me instead sleep upon a promise I may keep,

For while I dream

The dusk is falling.

-Albert Turner Goins