In the Autumn of 1507 in Stirling, Scotland
an Italian-born abbot, John Damian de Falcuis
studied birds in flight and believed he could fly.
He fashioned the feathers of eagles into wings
he wore on his arms. Clad in the makeshift
flying machine, he leaped off Stirling Castle.
For a moment, he hovered in the sky
as if, like a bird he really could fly;
then plummeted seventy feet to
the hard, merciless ground. Miraculously,
he survived, woke up in a doctor’s urgent care,
with many injuries and a shattered thigh bone.
He never could walk properly after that,
and he stayed out of the sky.
Bob Boyd
