Sisyphus
for James.
Why?
Why must we
imagine him
happy?
Even the words
press—
a weight.
Must?
Have you
not seen
the sand
like glass
beneath his nails?
or the ash
embedded deep
where the stone
burrows
its mark?
Have you
not looked
to his hands—
blistered
with questions
he did not know
were his own
to ask?
Even
his
silence
aches
to be known
There are no gods here.
They left the mountain
a long time ago—
only the wind remains,
and the form that
forgetting takes
when nothing
is left to be
named
Happy?
The air,
the dust,
the stone—
even the breath
feels empty.
Where would it live
this happiness?
in the lean of the slope?
in the dryness
of his spit
as he climbs
again
and again
and
again?
Would it
flicker still
in the body
he no longer
knows
as his own?
And if it came
to meet him
would he even
recognize it
or
pass it by,
thinking it
stone?
If it spoke,
would it choose his voice?
or the river
veining the valley,
the cloud
softly unforming,
or whisper
in the rain
loosening
the dust
from the stone?
Where would he find it?
at the summit—
or in each step
taken
again
and again
and again
without promise,
without purpose —
only
presence?
Imagine?
Perhaps
because the gods
left the answer—
in the silence
we enter
by naming.
Imagine
perhaps the stone
does not speak,
because it waits—
for us
to give
it voice.
Imagine
if
the struggle
is not the absence
of freedom,
but its very form.
Imagine
if
the gods
never left?
but were always
in the stone,
the dust,
the air
waiting
to be revealed
Imagine.