Sisyphus

To H.C. and J.H

It's strange, isn't it,
waking up to realize
one day that you've gone
over the hill, as they say,
and are facing the short side

of your string of days-
as Chuang Tzu aptly put it-
and then you begin
to face, not urgency, not
fear of death, but real comfort

in saying, “So this
is what I've become, this is
the man I am and
now I can take it easy,”
except that there ought to come

a time when the last
trace of last night's moon shining
in the water won't
move us to the edge of tears,
free of Sisyphean tasks,

when a beautiful
woman is not enough to
bring us dutifully
to our knees, or when the need
to undulate with warblers

floating on a breeze
is enough to make you scream.
Sisyphus was young.
He pushed the huge stone of self
until he became undone.

Even the stories
are sweeter for the young-who
drink too deeply
often enough and wander
in a semi-drunken state

of equal parts bliss
and all seven deadly sins.
In a warm spring rain,
the first cherry blossoms fall,
covering the path like snow.

Issa would be pleased.
I wouldn't be young again
for any damned thing.
Here's Mathios Paskalis
still among those Greek roses,

and, Seferis says,
his nose has grown wrinkled while
his pipe keeps smoking
as he descends the stone steps
that never come to an end.

I am beginning
at last to understand what
Seferis really
meant when he said, “I want
no more than to speak simply,

to be granted that
grace.” Simplicity's the end,
just a period
at the end of a compound
complex sentence, the great stone

of Sisyphus seen
from the hill's other side.
Let old men converse
across the abyss of time. We'll
watch salamanders couple

in a green pool's shade
and remember the passions
we indulged when we
were forty-five. Old age comes
more quickly than Yangtze floods.

And it's not all bad.
We can set a sturdy pace.
When there's nothing left
to prove, simplicity is
the very nature of things.

Chuang Tzu's fisherman
brought Confucius to his knees.
To follow the way,
he says with his sly grin, is
to finally reach completion.

Which is not an end,
but a means. Sisyphean
tasks, like lost causes,
are the only ones worthwhile.
And then the robin sings.