History
Even Sisyphus rested considering a new approach upstairs
Straight up this time this stone all the way to Elysium
But we could not, there was so much to do down here,
The cane the cane-cutting, egged on, the foreman saying, “some
Of you lazy-lazy,” if in pith helmet a high horse driver edging the field
Would remember to us another kind of history, chamars
Bent between stanzas of wavering cane under sun that keels
Their spines, dry their substance like raisins until the stars
Were switched on. This shift, shifting, outlasted a colony,
Work is its own end, ends in more work or no more work to win.
Then comes cursing, drinking, beating of wife, suicide, links on the rosary
Of deadly sins: rum-shop chopping, over-the-paling quarreling.
In the loll, the siesta, our hard worries balloon:
Hungry belly children at bare-foot soccer in the dusty yard
Scream their need; emptiness crams their craw
The beautiful struggle is not beautiful, life is hard.
Berkley Wendell Semple
