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(Can I reply with a poem?)


"The Nigh Bard"


The first story that I ever heard
Was that of Icharus
Of how he
Missed the sun
And how he fell and sunk
Deep in the sea
Living in the sky the trace
Of his parable.
And also of how that flight
Was all Dedalus’ making, Dedalus’s
Plan.

I heard the story at bed-time
Murmured in cold indigo shades
Rising from the grotto
Of my father’s mouth
My confidential aedo
Turning  on me his vacant gape
Blinded by the night gloom.

And I would know the fire
Burning Icharos’ wings
As dreams in adolescence
The splash of his limbs disappearing
In a blue abyss
Dedalus high above witnessing the fall
with a desperate howl.

Thirsty I would call for water.
And  in the dark I’d sense
Each crevice of my father’s face
With minute fingers.

Bard of mankind
Father of lost traces
On whose chest I would
Place my hear
To seize the voice of the unsaid
All the whispers from the starry branches
Of his forest
The blood resonance
In him that run in me
Like a deep river.



© Erminia Passannanti