silver feathers

The geraniums at Bahji were in even fuller bloom this weekend. Some of the petals were withering and had a darker color that added depth to the red. More succulents were sharing their year-long secrets. The strong winds of last week had blown leaves and twigs from the trees, littering the grass, gravel and sand of the gardens. Some of the old olives had lost small and large branches, which lay grounded in the afternoon sun, their leaves looking like a piles of silver feathers shed by a hopeful Icarus.

I attended a meeting of a poetry class that a friend was taking once, and students were retelling of the story of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun with the wings his father had made him, lost the wings when the wax holding them together melted, and fell to his death in the sea. One of the poems had a “seize the day” message, and the line that I remember was “so what if I fell?”. I liked that.

I also thought of an untold story that could be read between the lines. Icarus could say “My father thought he saw me fall, but that was only my body. I couldn't take it any higher so I dropped it and continued my flight.” Instead of being a symbol of someone whose prideful attempt to reach higher than he should have lead to his downfall, Icarus could represent the triumph of the spirit over the limitations of the material world. Which was a good symbol to find at Bahji.