21^st Century Sisyphus

I

Stone cold and struggling,

shouldering the load,

gradually, slowly, incrementally,

one wrestles:

3 inches forward,

1 inch back.

The incline is steeper, yet,

each crack and crevice

in the granite stone

is felt,

noticed;

not

in passing

but with attentive tears

lives broken, alone -

fissures, distance in dying.

Yet, one pushes

inch to inch

awake to each moment,

intense with care

the summit is reached.

A brief relief

as the stone rolls back

down the mount.

II

Leaves of grass

at one’s feet

a slow retreat,

descending

to where it began.

Resolved, stretching,

shoulder to stone

moving upward.

Attentive to the stone,

tracing the crevices,

memory recalls

impressions

of those embedded

in the granite.

It is the shouldering

that brings meaning

and here is genuine

life.

For in the shouldering

of the stone

lies the healing;

acts that count

in the face

of absurd suffering.

Each push,

each inch

matters.

It is in the struggle

not the summit

wherein

one finds life.

Written by Kenn Storck

March 31, 2020