TODAY'S POEM: FAILING AND FLYING, by Jack Gilbert
I have mentioned Jack Gilbert (no relation, sadly!) on this page before. He is my personal poet laureate, and his words have guided me greatly in the last decade.
Given yesterday's really searching and interesting conversation about divorce and regret, I wanted to post this poem today. It's a piece of perfection and humanity. Here goes:
FAILING AND FLYING
People forget 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 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 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.
—Jack Gilbert
