DDCPoetry

 Poem found here:   "Failing and Flying" by Jack Gilbert A story before the "analysis."  I read this poem and I thought it'd be a good idea to share with someone who was going through a rough divorce.  At first the person I shared the poem with was grateful, but then he told me he read it again and ripped up the poem.  I apologized not knowing how deeply the poem affected him. That event happened seven years ago.   Now on to the "analysis."  The comparative metaphor in the beginning tries to reconfigure a familiar trope, "Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew."  I think most people would remember the myth of him falling when getting too close to the sun; and, the speaker doesn't shy away from that failure in the next couple of lines:  It's the same when love comes to an end, or the marriage fails and people say they knew it was a mistake, that everybody said it would never work. That she was old enough to know better.  The com...