Altitude

Untitled Document

Icarus, he advised,
heed the warning: don’t fly
too near the sun or sea;
stay the path.

But I mistook the sky for an iris,
and entered at the northern horizon,
where map edges blister,
and the compass wasps.

I was dutiful but unwooed
by chisel and bench, contracts
scribbled in fig sap, or watching
Ariadne ungold time.

          What awe is there
in earthen labyrinths?

Wax molds itself sublime,
shapes wings each night.
Light refracts my name in
dialect only moths comprehend.

I belong elemental, where trees
chance to become constellations,
where the bar-headed goose flies
past with the heart of a clock and

Zeus is a silver kite tethered
to Olympus by harp strings
trembling an offering.

          Of bliss? To remember
the why of it all.

Bliss is a body absconding
warp speed toward
a dwarf star whispering,
Unsee the beheld.

My fall, well, yes,
those depths matter less.
What I learned by height—
that’s the story.

Credit

Copyright © 2025 by Airea D. Matthews. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 18, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem

“‘Altitude’ reimagines the myth of Icarus not as a cautionary tale of hubris, but as a meditation on ecstatic pursuit, disobedience, and the search for transcendent knowledge. The speaker rejects Daedalus’s pragmatic warnings, drawn instead to a metaphysical journey—flying not for safety or ambition, but to answer an elemental, inner urge to transform, no matter the consequence.” 
—Airea D. Matthews