A COUNTERPOISE

A COUNTERPOISE 

…So it goes, this task/of rolling the body’s stone forward then back,/ forward then back, until one forgets one’s name. //How many trips have I made? I’m listening/ still, trying to figure out how to answer/ paradox without breaking silence, how to sever //the contradictions that faithfully dog my steps. ---Luisa A. Igloria, “The Jewel in the Fruit,” Via Negativa, 02-09-12

How much of this is punishment?

Where is the jewel wrapped in stone? 

Would my Sisyphus escape Tartarian

Tedium, rolling itself to a boulder 

Of sin, of fear and endless trembling?

There was another stone rolled away, 

From a cave that could not bury love

Even as it was nailed to die on a tree. 

Which rock would I now cleave to?

Which promise? How many times 

Must I roll downhill with this burden?

Why should I fall with his craven cross? 

Is the absence of choice a birthright?

Or is it the fearsome fate of being alive? 

On sundowns like this, I will not break

My silence, nor weep to beg for light. 

Without a whimper, without regret,

I will take my rock uphill or downhill, 

Pare it until it becomes the river pebble

That must one day crack downstream

Like a wounded oyster birthing a pearl

From the dirt of an abandoned quarry, 

Like this place, this injured home,

This Earth, this leftover dungeon of fear. 

On the death of days like this, I kneel

Before a cliff that can only take me down. 

Like the tedium of sunrises and sunsets,

I steel myself into a still point of hope. 

---Albert B. Casuga

02-10-11