Failing and Flying by Jack Gilbert

Failing and Flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew. 

It's the same when love comes to an end, 

or the marriage fails and people say 

they knew it was a mistake, that everybody 

said it would never work. That she was 

old enough to know better. But anything 

worth doing is worth doing badly. 

Like being there by that summer ocean 

on the other side of the island while 

love was fading out of her, the stars 

burning so extravagantly those nights that 

anyone could tell you they would never last. 

Every morning she was asleep in my bed 

like a visitation, the gentleness in her 

like antelope standing in the dawn mist. 

Each afternoon I watched her coming back 

through the hot stony field after swimming, 

the sea light behind her and the huge sky 

on the other side of that. Listened to her 

while we ate lunch. How can they say 

the marriage failed? Like the people who 

came back from Provence (when it was Provence) 

and said it was pretty but the food was greasy. 

I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, 

but just coming to the end of his triumph.