i love this poem

“Beginning,” He Answered.

The blank look on their faces let

Sisyphus know

they didn’t understand

the hard part wasn’t

the work of pushing the rock uphill.

He almost enjoyed

the heaviness of the rock,

and the honest, exhausting labor

of those long days.

They couldn’t know

that momentum started,

even uphill,

carries its own weight.

They only saw the size of the rock,

and the angle of the hill,

and naturally assumed

the work they could witness

was the hard part.

No one was there

in the cool mornings

as he stared at his rock

in silence,

his feet still,

his hands gently resting

on its curved sides.

No one was there

to hear the unspoken words

shouted to the Gods, pleading

for the strength to bear,

not the rock,

but the desperate weight of wondering,

how to begin,

again.

— Gretchen Schmelzer