Sisyphus

Sisyphus
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On barren crest
a craggy crooked overhang
stands smashed against a hill.
Each morn it bleeds against the sun,
juts an angry ledge that leads beyond the view.

Closer now, a man defines
his task, the sound immense in motion.
Rolling.

Briefly it sits against a nook. Silence.
Cunning once, he is broken, fixed,
briefly stooped, torpid against his fare.
Sinews in his arms collapse as
blisters dance, stretching for relief
against the sweat-washed strain.

There is no rest, really. Illusion, a blink.
The climb commences, into the
shiny blood afar we stand,
passersby who watch the
scene bemused.

A thousand years, though, this
persists in cycle. The stride, angled still -
the sullen cries. The mountain path
forgives its friend.

Who never thought to throw
the boulder down, transcend, and
behold a man born within a man.

Instead, he arches into the scripted path
whispering pleas too soft and weak
to pull the power down
and empty his hand.

hln
9/7/03

Posted by hln at September 7, 2003 08:42 PM | Poetry