Sisyphus (unfinished)

Sisyphus (unfinished) 

She grits her teeth mouth-ful of sharp sand 

muscle solid heft against dead-weight of effort 

Resolute corrugated brow, 

traces of bitter sweat squinting ahead impossible to see beyond or through the dense grey hugeness massive concretion of rock 

hard to guage distances ahead 

Onwards Upwards Inch by tortuous inch 

Neck, back, body taut and straining, shouldering the boulder knotted in spasm 

She finds brief respite in fantasies of weightlessness 

of flight and freedom

     hollow bones, feathery wings, soaring in clear blue sky 

     swift silvery fish gliding cool in silky water 

Could she simply step aside, leave the boulder crashing down alone? 

 Would she be crushed in its path, left damaged incomplete? 

Should they ever reach the top, then what? 

how would it be? 

Views from a summit, at rest. slack, relaxed, gazing at distant horizons? 

a stable place to lean her back?  safe refuge? 

 

Some are crushed by rocks

Some build on them

Nesting

 

 

I see them everywhere 

cradling in the still bare wintry branches of the trees 

complicating the stark simple lines and angles 

 

Precarious, bleak, risky lattices of twig 

 nestling exposed balancing reckless so high above the ground

tenuous fragility of interlacing branches

skeletal leaves 

breathtaking even at such a distance foolhardy dangerous brave necessary 

raise a chord of identification in me a pang of painful recognition

unfeasible, extraordinary they have survived the winds and blasts of winter 

They must be sturdier than they look

tenacious 

Will the shoots, leaves, growth, verdure of spring and summer shield and protect them? 

Hide from prying eyes like mine

buffer from wind and weather

secure, fix and fasten

grow into a green cocoon-womb of warmth and safety private, intimate, shared refuge flesh and blood on bare rib and bone home life enclosing nurturing life? 

One can only hope.

 

ADDENDUM Some of these trees have since been brutally pollarded. Defoliated. Mutilated knucklebones gesturing obscenely into the sky. Empty. Bereft.