Father, I fell in your shadow,
your shaded brilliance overlaid
every compass point of my life.

I haven't your talents;
the gods do not love me.
Athena weaves no passion
to fill my shell-curved ear.

The palace of Minos
breeds not ingenuity but beauty
and obedience, as plentiful
as the phallic columns of white marble.
There I learned to bow low,
with a pleasing, humble countenance.

Something never required of you
--star-crowned of heaven--
casting your fate over kings
and kingdoms; careless
of royal pomp and pageantry,
drunkenly inhaling the gods' exhale.

The cunning gods tempted me to excess;
I was teased to Olympian heights, caught and
cauterized by the Cloud-Gatherer's thunderbolt,
when light-bearing Aether abandoned me.

Oh faithless feathers,
how glorious your flight!
Caressed by Aether's pure air
into weightless being...until
melted wax wings bleed pinions, and
weighted, they spiral the upper sky.

I paid the price for your fame and folly;
consecrated, sacrificed for safe passage
to the Trident of the ocean;
Earth Shaker, Storm Bringer~
rider of azure sea-foam horses...

I cried as I fell, “Father, please save me!”
But you could not hear, your anointed ears
both deaf and dumb to earthly concerns;
so distracted by divine emanations
that Poseidon swallowed me whole,
plunging me to my own fame.

The Sea and land to bear my name;
where you, deep-mouthed, screamed pain,
holding your child's broken body,
ancient oceans trapped in my eyes.