Icarus
Recently discovering Kate Tempest has re-inspired my love of words. I'm a lazy reader and a lazy writer but hearing the flow and seeing the show of spoken word ignites my mind and my heart creating a fire inside. My imagination runs wild and the words can't keep up the phrases loop and turn and make connections my stomach churns but maybe that's just the milk I drank or dinner digesting.
Hearing her poem about Icarus, a story we've all heard and know well, combined with attending a climate change rally today caused me to see this tale of caution in new, somewhat blinding, light. Are we not all Icarus, with our wings of oil bringing a us too close to the proverbial sun, causing dangerous and potential lethal damage to our world? We'll surely all crash into the sea just as he. Our wings let us fly from city to city, drive 110 miles per hour, stay up late in the night with lights oh so bright, take hot showers with the flick of switch, be entertained and connected to our loved ones while miles of distance keep us apart. Are we not all flying a little close to the sun? Do we not feel the heat and burn as we work late hours, travel and move away from those we care about - our community, our friends, our rivals - the ones who challenge and love us? As we see more and more tornadoes, floods, severe storms, tsunamis and such?
Are our wings not melting as we run out of oil? As the CO2 parts per million goes higher and higher trapping too much heat inside and melting all our glaciers, changing the jet streams, raising the temperatures, increasing the storms?
Oh Icarus, we never did learn from your lesson.