Paeon To The Sun Poem by D A Phinney

Call me
Icarus.
His daddy warned him-
No doubt Daedelus was remembering someone
Like you,
So why did he give his boy
Those wings? -
But maybe Icky saw some fire still there
In Dear Old Dad's eye,
Maybe just a twinkle,
The memory of a star now far away
That he once knew.
And for a long time did I not worship at a distance,
Keeping my feet on the ground?
But your gravity was pulling at me,
Raising me...
Mornings I would lay upon the lawn,
Your yellow corona spreading above me,
Lifting me like the dew.
And when the time came,
Did I not fly to you?
I flew.
I flew.
Your arms flared open and surrounded me
In a hot embrace that
Threatened to melt me down
To my essential
Desires.
But this was no warm welcome,
No, no, a hunger to devour and consume,
To flay me with your fire,
The liquid burn that pits my flesh,
The magnetic storm that chars my bones.
And even your hands have mouths,
And sometimes teeth...
And I am sacrificed
To your voracious love,
Till there is only left
A scattering of ash
Cooling in your outer reaches.
But after an age I drift, I fall back
Into your hellish heaven
To burn in Paradise,
To be the fuel that feeds your heat, your heart,
And know all the smoldering naked secrets
Of fusion.
And as I rise again,
You call me...
Call me
Phoenix,
Who knows now that the wait-
Was it only a thousand years? -
Was worth it.
You will never be just a twinkle in these eyes,
But the fire inside
Slaying me,
Animating me.
Nothing is ever lost,
Only changed, transformed,
The single point of fusion...
The single tear of love.