fbpx

ÍCARO

by Irene Zottola

In order to escape from the labyrinth in which they had been imprisoned, Daedalus made a pair of wings for himself and for his son Icarus. Flying would make them free. In his enthusiasm, after taking fight Icarus got too close to the sun, as a result of wich the heat melted the wax that held the feathers on his back and ended up falling into the sea and drowing.
Over the course of history, a liasion has been forged between human beings and the sky; between the desire TO FLY and the physical and symbolic meaning entailed by flying. As a result, fight brings together contrary and complementary elements: the eternal and the ascending as opposed to the perishable and descending, the hope and the distress in the act of learning to fly and thus rising or plunging to the ground; life and death. Despair and fatigue contrast sharply with the desire and the illusion to FLY.
Birds are symbols of thought, of the imagination and connections with the spirit. Wings and feathers express an elevation to the sublime, signalling a liberation and victory. They are worn by heroes.
Our desire TO FLY responds to our need to move to one place to another, although we very often plunge into an abyss, as did Icarus.
To become airborne- that’s where the poetry lies.

irenezottola.com