National Poetry Month - #2

It's well-known that William Carlos Williams was a doctor and a poet.  He actually started writing poetry when he was young, before he decided to study medicine, but continued with it throughout his life.  And I think that's part of the reason I admire him and his work.  He didn't allow himself to get pigeon-holed into the role of Doctor or Poet, and that gives me hope that, while I may do other things, I can still be a poet or an inventor or whatever.

I've always loved the sparseness of his poems because it takes you right to the heart of what he wanted to express.  And while I enjoy much of his work, I have a soft spot in my heart for 'Landscape with the Fall of Icarus' since it was written as Williams' response to Brueghel's painting based on a Greek myth.  I love when multiple media can come together.

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
by William Carlos Williams

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

 a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

 of the year was
awake tingling
near

 the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

 sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax

 unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

 a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

{Click to enlarge}