Flying, Falling

"...all joy wants eternity."
                            ~ Nietzsche


There's always an occasion
at which someone asks: given
a second chance at life, what 
would you change, or would you 
do it over again, the same way 

twice? Would you listen 
to your father's warnings 
about the temperature at which 
wax and honey will melt, or flex 
your new wings anyway

toward the sun's gold shine?
I teach that poem often, paired
with the equally famous painting
where everything in the landscape
seems to turn away from tragedy.

Is this refusal to witness deliberate?
Farmer, plowman, that guy angling 
for fish at the edge of the water; 
and surely that ship wasn't on 
autopilot—how do they not whip 

their heads around at the sound 
of a body hitting open water? 
How could they not see what was right 
in front of their eyes, when all the boy
wanted, even while plummeting from 

his grey prison and from such a height, 
was that rich embroidery of green 
and blue soaked in sunshine, the chain-
stitched fields, the sheep like tufts  
of French knots studding the hill.