there are many
ways for a man
to die
infinite even
take for example
Icarus
the Greek son
whose father
warned him
to fly
neither too
close to the sea
nor
too close to
the sun
the son ignored
his father and
found himself
flapping his arms
where before
there had been
careful wings
constructed of
feathers and wax
holding
him in the air
escaping for
a moment blue
earth below
the son fell into
the sea —
a scene Breugel
paints with
omission
only legs land in
water splashing
a shepherd looks
to the sky
collapsing time
prolepsis
hubris they say
the desire to be
godlike
they say
but what of
curiosity
what of a
desire to see
the earth
expansive
to be not
like a
god
but a bird
free of gravity
and its
pressure its
insistence
the father must
have grieved
in the sky
but he flew on
pitted grief
lodged between
the oropharynx
and the
esophagus
glottal
insistence
when a whale
dies its body
falls thousands
of feet to the
water’s floor
its body feeds
millions
it takes years for
its winged
finned body to
disintegrate
completely
barely visible
in the water’s
depths except
maybe
to Icarus who
fell there
an Iroquois
story of creation
relies on a fall
from sky to sea
Sky Woman
lived on an
island floating
above the earth
then landless
here there was
no death
no sadness and
no birth
two realms
one of sky and
one of water
both
inhabited
one by Great
Spirits
the other by
water animals
there was no
sun yet
a giant tree lit
Sky Island
Great Spirit
uprooted
this tree
and a hole
to the lower
realm appeared
Sky Woman
pregnant with
twins fell or
was pushed
or jumped
through this hole
her fall was
gentle and long
long enough for
the animals who
lived in the
waters to
witness the light
emanating
from her body
they grew
concerned
about the force
of her landing
birds caught her
and placed her
delicately on the
shell of
Great Turtle
the beaver or
the muskrat
or the otter
gathered dirt
from the ocean’s
floor and
placed
it too on the
back of
Great Turtle
whose shelled
body expanded
forming
the continent of
North America
Sky Woman died
in childbirth
and one of her
sons placed her
head in the sky
which
became the
sun
yesterday an
unmanned rover
took flight on
the planet Mars
for 39.1 seconds
in the thin
atmosphere
of the red planet
it spun its
counter-rotating
carbon-fiber
blades
more than 2400
times per minute
which is
equivalent to
more than
forty times per
second
a speed so fast
the blades
might look still
generating
enough lift for
the rover to rise
nine feet into
the Martian air
air that is
composed of
less than 1%
oxygen
the rover
carried with it
a stamp size
piece of muslin
fabric from the
Wright brothers’
plane
which in 1903
flew over
the dunes in
Kitty Hawk
North Carolina
making four low
altitude flights
the longest of
which lasted
59 seconds and
traveled 852
feet
before the
biplane made
“unintended
landings”
after these
flights a
powerful gust of
wind carried the
plane
across the
dunes flipping
it over and over
and over
on the ground
rendering it
unable to fly
again
what of the
nearly three
and a half million
Americans who
died in 2020
the leading
cause of death
heart disease
next
cancer
third
Covid-19
fourth
“unintentional
injuries”
a category
which could also
and easily
be called
“accidents”
a word whose
derivation joins
the Latin prefix
‘ad’ and the
verb ‘cedere’
combining the
prefix
‘approach’ and
the verb ‘fall’ or
‘fall upon’
for thousands of
years the sense
of misfortune
has dogged the
word “accident”
the Latin phrase
‘is quid cui
accidat’
translates
to “if anything
should happen
to one”
but
was used
as a
euphemism for
death
he cried out
that he couldn’t
breathe
he cried out
for his mother
he cried out for
the cop kneeling
on his neck
blocking air
to stop
for nine minutes
and twenty-nine
seconds
a young woman
recorded what
was happening
he couldn’t
breathe
then later
53 Indonesian
sailors
ran out of
oxygen
suffocating
in the deep
when their
submarine
descended too
low
and lost contact
with the land
above
they would have
known within
days within hours
within seconds
that they would
no
longer be able
to breathe
the forty year
old submarine
was found split
into three pieces
more than half
a mile below
the water’s
surface
an internal
wave might have
forced the
vessel below
its collapse depth
at which point
pressure cracks
the vessel open
on the surface
these waves are
barely
detectable if not
invisible
generated by
strong tides
topography and
warm and cool
water mixing
in the ocean
they can grow
hundreds of feet
without warning
on the
subcontinent
nearby
thousands
have no oxygen
there aren’t
enough
ventilators
which hiss and
hum as they
pump
mechanically
oxygen into the
body
breathing
for the body
a set number
of breaths
per minute
pushing and
expelling air
into and out of
a tube
that goes
into the mouth
and down the
windpipe
adjacent to the
oropharynx
and the
esophagus