Sisyfus Talking at His Stone

Sisyfus Talking at his Stone

What should I say on the shore of

a small dead sea

slowly the water fills

the shapes of feet which have vanished

                                                “Episode”                                               

                                                Zbigniew Herbert

Even here there’s routine

especially here I suppose

when a hole dug is a hole

you're hoping's undug but

since that’s not possible

the post hole tool, the one

leaning against the stone wall

that poet said would come

undone and it did and

shit if we weren’t sur-

prised even though

we’d been told even though

we’d been showed. 

Until the twin handle is

gripped and raised up

and all’s been plunged into

and spread, until the mouth

and jaw rise drip-dribbling

dirt some will ceremoniously

save in their own sacred pile

and some will throw aside

and scatter like winnowed

stones, until then you don’t

know you just don’t know

a hole a round perfect and

with each thrust deep (through

water sometimes, depending

on her season and how winter

kept her) the smooth handles

of the tool: post hole diggers

don’t grow, but you do, and o

how fluent.  Soon enough,
and in this place, listen, 

you’ll be in it: the tough

staccato of digger on stone.