Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

According to Brueghel when Icarus fell

it was spring

a farmer was ploughing

his field

the whole of nature

danced

and the sun shone

in the morning with the

smile of a mother

but Icarus fell

into the water

and did not

rise again

and in the

country of the sun

in the summer’s-time

did not notice him.

Each willow

and bird

sang

while the sea drowned him.

There was only

the sound

of the waves

and the clouds

in the sky.

And the fallen.

This is how it happened.

• William Carlos Williams