As Icarus drowns in the deep-green, wine-dark sea,
before the white, round fisher happily ensconced
and th’ extr’ordinary sailing ship embarking,
a shepherd, standing near his flock and loyal dog,
is gazing in the opposite direction tow’rd
the sky. Above him, looking down, a plowman slogs
along; he’s turning up the ground behind a horse.
The landscape’s touched with foliage, shadows, trees;
and all around one sees, birds, buildings, and, of course,
the distant sun, that sits at the horizon, gleams
o’er all, rocks, people, ships upon the watery
diagonal the vista shows legs leave with ease.
Breugel’s Earthscape
by Sir Bac de Leeuw
The Sun and Sea enormously take up the picture’s span.
Beneath, four men make up a lower parallelogram:
the farmer following his plow-horse is the largest man;
the shepherd managing his sheep is next with lamb and ram;
beside the water in the corner is the fisher and
young Icarus. A corpse’s head and shoulder lie on land.
What is that city in the distance? ideal Amsterdam?
What is that sword and scabbard by a moneybag—some scam?
There is a partridge in a pear tree, so much one can scan—
Two ships are passing, with full sails, balanced by their masts.
Sir Bac de Leeuw is a poet of the Netherlands.