sara Etgen-Baker Poet Free verse

Notes About The Poem

image from stockcake.com

poem submitted to "Pick-A-Title" poetry contest, Edward Ibeh, sponsor, September 12, 2026

<em>“Wax and feather were never the danger; it was Icarus’ quiet conviction that he deserved the sun.”  </em>(quote by the poetess) 

A Most Distant Sun

O aureate star of my undoing,  
you rise beyond the reach  
of mortal moderation~  
a conflagration I once courted  
with reckless, radiant hunger.  

Your distant blaze beckoned me,  
a fevered summons  
to ascend past prudent counsel,  
past the patient wisdom  
of those who warned  
that hubris has a heat  
no wing can bear.

I felt your fire  
before I ever touched it~  
felt it flicker  
in the fragile lattice  
of my longing,  
felt it whisper  
through the wax-stitched seams  
of my unsteady ambition.  

Still I climbed,  
angel-aching,  
sky-struck,  
drunk on the dizzying dream  
of being seen  
by something so incandescent.
Your light lured me upward,  
a shimmering promise  
that I could outfly fear,  
outpace caution,  
outshine the shadows  
that clung to my quieter days.  

I rose through the blue hush  
of untested heights,  
my heart a trembling engine  
of want and wonder.  
And you~  
you burned with the beauty  
of a thousand unspoken futures,  
each one brighter  
than the last.

But distance is a deity  
with its own demands.  
And you,  
most distant sun,  
kept your counsel  
as I neared the threshold  
where desire dissolves  
into danger.  

Your heat hardened,  
your halo sharpened,  
your brilliance blazed  
beyond benevolence.  
Still I reached~  
still I believed  
that yearning could rewrite  
the laws of light.

The air thinned.  
The wax wept.  
The feathers faltered  
in the furnace of your truth.  

And I~ 
I felt the slow surrender  
of every fragile filament  
that had carried me  
so far from sense.  
My ascent unraveled  
into a fall  
I could not flee.

And in that molten instant  
when the sky tore open around me,  
I felt the world tilt~  
felt the wind gather my name  
as if it had been waiting  
for me to remember  
where I began.

I drifted downward  
through a hush of cooling light,  
the remnants of your fire  
still trembling in my ribs. 
 
No revelation,  
no tidy reckoning~  
only the soft recognition  
that descent has its own  
strange mercy.

And you, a most distant sun, 
remain far beyond the reach  
of my mortal grasp,  
yet your radiance threads itself  
through the chambers  
of my becoming~  
not as a lesson,  
but as lingering brightness  
I carry without claiming.

♡Like0

Share Poem

---

Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.

Please Login to post a comment