What I Owe to the Ancients
(For Matt Lynch)

I

Turning to the stone,
the toiled frame of a sentenced man
turned, stood, alone.
Pressing against the boulder,
he likened the round rock
to a crystal ball of grave insight,
and began pushing,
resting his head on his shoulder.
He took, or rather, considered the first step,
but thought not of mountains,
named no Nevis, Olympias or Saanas,
for the sight of the heights
itself equals the weight of regret.
Bulging muscles of the legs tensed
for that first push, that sank
both feet deep to the terrain of mud.
But look! The rock moved,
if only by the space of few paces,
while the mountain assured:
“no victory of man over the weight of fate
shall be perceived or sensed”.
Yet, each step pushed the noble convict
upward the hill. Despite the stinging meeting
of sweat and bloodied, scraped knees,
and the mud of the rock grinding against blistered hands,
the stone yielded to the body’s demands -
though by no means the two danced with ease.
Upward still; the convict and rock climbed as one, bridging their rift;
flesh and stone together, as a punishment and a gift.

Alas, of course, the struggle was not blessed,
as the mountaintop was reached.
Both man and stone knew naught was achieved,
but a sudden roll back, the climb up is endless;
again to summon the first infant steps,
again to mingle dirt, sweat and blood -
yet - again for the man and rock to fall in love,
again for the fingers to carve heart-shaped frets
on the surface of the stone.
For why should the convict refrain,
if “one always finds one’s burden again”?

II

This be how I dream of you, o Sysiphus.
I know your aches, your toil. I counted your every bruise.
I would, at times, wish to mend your pains;
tend your wounds, wash your sweat, and care for your remains.
Could you be wrapped in a cloth of white?
Be sealed by your stone, be reborn as verse to write?

No, dear Sysiphus.

For your punishment alone, you must stay alive.
Continue embracing your rock,
pushing up and up still,
while you ascend even when walking down the hill.
For despite the convict’s cloak,
you are the warden that can stop –
stop and unlock -
your manacles with your smile.

Like Camus, I leave you by the mountainside,
Where you accepted the freedom you once were denied.
I leave you, as by your smile I can tell,
like the battered, blind Oedipus reckoned; “All is well”.
I leave you now, to push my block of ice and snow,
through channels of water and rocky cliffs to places unknown.
I leave you, for a burden of my own.
But before my retreat,
I wish to kiss the sweat of your brow,
if only to repeat:
“Despite my despairs, due to destiny’s denial,
Sysiphus, I love thee – but only for your smile”